Multi-state tax · Massachusetts to New Hampshire
When moving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, taxes on your salary depend on where you work each day.
New Hampshire does not tax wages, and it stopped taxing interest and dividends after 2024. A day you work from home in New Hampshire is outside Massachusetts tax. With two office days a week, Massachusetts can tax about 40% of your salary.
Updated · Sources
State tax for a New Hampshire resident, 2026
- 5%
- is Massachusetts’s rate on your pay for working days spent in Massachusetts.
- 4%
- is the surtax on Massachusetts taxable income over $1,107,750.
- 0%
- is New Hampshire’s tax on wages, and on interest and dividends since 2025.
The $1,107,750 surtax threshold is the 2026 figure. Massachusetts indexes it for inflation every year.
Which tests decide what Massachusetts can tax after you move?
Take them in order. If you fail either of the first two, Massachusetts taxes all your income as a resident’s. The last two decide which days of your pay it can tax.
New Hampshire is now your domicile
Massachusetts keeps taxing you as a resident for as long as it remains your domicile, meaning your true, fixed and permanent home. New Hampshire law counts you as a resident once your actions show your home there is your principal place of physical presence. Getting a New Hampshire driver’s license is one such action. New residents who drive must get one within 60 days.
No Massachusetts home, or 183 days or fewer there
A permanent place of abode in Massachusetts means a home you maintain there. If you keep one, you are a Massachusetts resident for any year you spend over 183 days there. With a Massachusetts home, any day partly in Massachusetts counts toward the 183, so 184 office commutes make you a resident.
The days you work in Massachusetts
As a salaried nonresident, you owe Massachusetts tax on the share of your salary earned on Massachusetts working days. That share is your days worked in Massachusetts divided by all your days worked. Work done in Massachusetts is Massachusetts income wherever you are paid. A day at home in New Hampshire counts only toward the total.
Days split between the two states
A working day spent partly in Massachusetts counts as a Massachusetts day, unless you can prove you worked elsewhere for over half of it.
Holidays, sick days, vacation and paid or unpaid leave count as neither Massachusetts working days nor total working days.
With two office days a week, Massachusetts taxes $60,000 of a $150,000 salary.
Every workday in the Boston office
$7,500
All 240 days are Massachusetts days, so the whole salary is Massachusetts income.
Two office days a week
$3,000
You work 96 days in Boston and 144 at home in New Hampshire.
Fully remote from New Hampshire
$0
You never work in Massachusetts, so it taxes no part of the salary.
Massachusetts income is the salary times Massachusetts days over 240: $150,000 × 96 ÷ 240 = $60,000. Each tax figure applies Massachusetts’s 5% rate, before the exemptions and deductions on Form 1-NR/PY that lower it. Federal tax is the same in every row, apart from any state tax you deduct by itemizing. On this salary alone, a daily commute costs the same $7,500 as living in Massachusetts would.
Once you live in New Hampshire, Massachusetts taxes your Massachusetts work and property.
The first column shows what Massachusetts taxes a resident in 2026. The second shows what it can still tax once you live in New Hampshire.
| Before the move | After the move | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | 5% | 5% on Massachusetts days |
| Interest and dividends | 5% | Not taxed |
| Gains on investments | 5% 8.5% if short-term | Not taxed Except Massachusetts real estate |
| Rent from Massachusetts property | 5% | 5% Still Massachusetts income |
| Income counted for the 4% surtax | All of it | Massachusetts income only |
What trips people up after moving to New Hampshire?
A sale a week before the move
Until your move date, Massachusetts taxes your gains as it does any resident’s. A $100,000 short-term gain on a sale a week before the move costs $8,500 in Massachusetts tax, at 8.5%. Sell listed stock or funds after the move, and Massachusetts no longer taxes the gain. Massachusetts real estate and stock tied to your pay are exceptions.
Options from your Massachusetts years
Massachusetts still taxes a share of the spread when you exercise nonqualified options as a New Hampshire resident. The share is your average Massachusetts percentage, meaning the part of each year’s workdays spent in Massachusetts, averaged from grant to exercise. Three years working fully in Massachusetts and one fully in New Hampshire give yearly figures of 100%, 100%, 100% and 0%. Massachusetts then taxes the average, 75% of the spread.
Stock and pay that arrive after you leave
Massachusetts still taxes RSUs and restricted stock that vest once you live in New Hampshire, on the share earned by your Massachusetts work. A bonus or other pay for Massachusetts work, paid in a later year, is Massachusetts income too. ISO and ESPP shares are generally outside Massachusetts tax after the move. The exception is a disqualifying disposition, meaning a sale before the required holding periods end.
One surtax threshold for a married couple
A couple filing jointly for federal tax must generally file jointly in Massachusetts, with one $1,107,750 surtax threshold between them. The rule holds even when the spouses have different residency status, such as one moving to New Hampshire months before the other.
Get the Massachusetts share right on your Form 1-NR/PY.
Valim’s CPAs file Form 1-NR/PY for people who left Massachusetts for New Hampshire, splitting their pay and stock by Massachusetts working days.
- We place each item of income before or after your move date and split salary, RSUs and options by your Massachusetts workdays. Then we file Form 1-NR/PY with your federal return.
- We test an exercise or share sale against your move date and the surtax threshold before you act.
- We calculate Massachusetts estimated payments when your withholding falls short.
- If Massachusetts questions the day count on a return we prepared, our reply costs nothing extra.
- Individual return
- from $195
- Business return
- from $495
We quote a flat fee before work starts. We do not bill hourly.
Massachusetts to New Hampshire tax questions.
Is it cheaper to live in NH or MA?
For state income tax, New Hampshire is cheaper, because it taxes no wages and, from 2025, no interest or dividends. Massachusetts taxes most income at 5% and short-term capital gains at 8.5%, plus 4% on taxable income over $1,107,750 in 2026. Living in New Hampshire does not end Massachusetts tax on your Massachusetts working days. California does the same after a move to Texas, taxing pay for California workdays.
What are the tax advantages of living in NH?
The main tax advantage of living in New Hampshire is that it taxes neither your wages nor, from 2025, your interest and dividends. Its Interest and Dividends Tax, charged at 3% for 2024, was repealed for taxable periods beginning after December 31, 2024. Massachusetts still taxes the pay for your Massachusetts working days.
Is it better to retire in MA or NH?
For income tax, New Hampshire usually comes out ahead for retirees, since it no longer taxes interest and dividends. Federal law also bars Massachusetts from taxing a nonresident’s qualified pension and IRA payouts, even after a career there. Deferred pay from a Massachusetts job can stay taxable there, unless federal law protects it. Massachusetts can still tax rent from, and gains on, property located in Massachusetts. Its estate tax can reach that property too, if your federal taxable estate is over $2 million.
Do Massachusetts and New Hampshire have reciprocity?
No, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have no reciprocity agreement. Such an agreement lets workers pay wage tax only to their home state. New Hampshire has no wage tax, so it has nothing to exchange. A New Hampshire resident owes Massachusetts tax for each working day spent in Massachusetts, with no credit at home. Days worked from home in New Hampshire are taxed by neither state.
Does the 4% surtax still apply once I live in New Hampshire?
Yes, if the Massachusetts taxable income on your Form 1-NR/PY is over $1,107,750 in 2026. Only income Massachusetts can still tax counts, such as pay for Massachusetts workdays and options tied to your job there. If a large exercise brings your Massachusetts taxable income to $1,500,000, the surtax is 4% of $392,250. That is $15,690, on top of the 5% tax.
Can I work from home in New Hampshire for a Massachusetts employer?
Yes, and the days you work at home in New Hampshire fall outside Massachusetts tax. A pandemic-era rule counted them as Massachusetts days, but it ended in 2021. A day you work in a Massachusetts office is generally a Massachusetts day. New York works differently: its convenience of the employer rule can tax home days when your office is in New York.
Which Massachusetts return covers the year of my move?
Form 1-NR/PY covers the whole year of your move, as both a part-year resident and a nonresident. It taxes all your income up to the move date, and only Massachusetts income after it. New Hampshire does not tax wages, so your pay needs no New Hampshire return. In later years, pay for Massachusetts workdays still goes on a Form 1-NR/PY. Leaving New Jersey, by contrast, can take two returns for one year.
Sources
- 830 CMR 62.5A.1, Non-resident income tax (Massachusetts)
- 830 CMR 62.5A.3, Massachusetts source income of nonresidents telecommuting due to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Massachusetts DOR, Massachusetts 4% Surtax on Taxable Income
- Massachusetts DOR, Massachusetts Tax Rates
- New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration, Interest & Dividends Tax
- N.H. Rev. Stat. § 21:6, Resident; Inhabitant
- N.H. Rev. Stat. § 263:35, Nonresident Who Establishes a Residency in the State
- 4 U.S.C. § 114, Limitation on State income taxation of certain pension income
- Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 65C, § 2A, Transfer of estate and real property; tax
Reviewed and updated September 2026. General information, not advice for your situation.