New Hampshire Final Paycheck Law: Deadlines, Deductions, and Penalties

New Hampshire final paycheck law gives employers a tight window to pay a departing employee, and the window depends on how the employment ended. Under RSA 275:44, a discharged employee must be paid in full within 72 hours. A resigning employee who gave at least one pay period’s notice must also be paid within 72 hours. A resigning employee who left without that notice can be paid on the next regular payday. Miss the applicable deadline and the exposure is not just the unpaid wages: liquidated damages and attorney’s fees are on the table.¹

Deadlines by How the Employment Ended

RSA 275:44 sets four scenarios, and each has its own clock.¹

Discharged (fired or terminated): all wages due within 72 hours of termination.
Resigned with at least one pay period’s notice: all wages due within 72 hours. This is the rule employers most often miss, defaulting to “next payday” when the employee actually earned the accelerated timeline by giving notice.
Resigned without that much notice: paid no later than the next regular payday, through normal payroll channels or by mail on request.
Laid off or suspended due to a labor dispute: paid no later than the next regular payday.

The 72 hours are calendar hours, not business hours. Fire someone Friday afternoon and the deadline lands Monday morning, not the following payroll run. Building final-check processing into your termination checklist is the only reliable way to stay inside the statute.

What Belongs in the Final Check

The final paycheck has to cover every form of earned but unpaid compensation, not just base pay through the last day worked.

Regular hourly or salaried pay and any overtime from the final pay period are the baseline. Commissions count as wages under RSA 275:42 and must be reconciled at least monthly. If a commission was earned before the employee left but the employer hasn’t finished calculating it, the obligation to pay it doesn’t disappear. Delayed reconciliation is not a lawful excuse for delayed payment.

Accrued but unused vacation qualifies as wages when the employer’s written policy or an employment agreement says it does. New Hampshire doesn’t require paid vacation, but once you promise it, the payout at separation follows the terms you wrote. Silence in the policy tends to be read against the employer in a dispute, so spelling out whether unused vacation is paid at separation is worth doing before it matters.

Nondiscretionary bonuses, meaning bonuses tied to production, attendance, accuracy, or a preset formula, are earned wages once the employee meets the criteria and belong in the final check.² A truly discretionary bonus, one the employer had no obligation to pay and hadn’t announced, generally does not.

Deductions: The Common Trap

This is where employers most often walk into a wage claim. Under RSA 275:48, only two kinds of deductions are lawful: those required by law, and those the employee has authorized in writing.³

Required deductions include federal and state income tax, Social Security and Medicare, and active court-ordered garnishments such as child support. For ordinary consumer debt, federal law caps the deduction at 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which weekly earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is less. Child support can run higher: up to 50% if the employee supports another spouse or child, 60% if not, with an added 5% when the order is more than 12 weeks overdue.⁴

Voluntary deductions require written authorization from the employee. The statute lists categories such as union dues, health and pension contributions, charitable donations, housing costs, savings deposits, legal plans, voluntary uniform cleaning, and employer loans with documented repayment terms. A catch-all provision permits any mutually agreed deduction, but only if it gives the employer no financial advantage and doesn’t offset the cost of items the employee needs to do the job.

The instinct to dock a final check for an unreturned laptop, a damaged company vehicle, or a register shortage is understandable and unlawful unless the employee signed a written authorization for that deduction before the situation arose. Pressuring someone to sign an authorization on the way out will not hold up. The employer carries the burden of proving every deduction was legally justified, and the NH Department of Labor treats employer-initiated deductions from final pay skeptically.⁵

How You Can Pay

Under RSA 275:43, final wages can be paid in cash, by check, or by direct deposit if the employee previously authorized electronic payment in writing. Employers who use direct deposit or payroll cards must also offer payment by check. You cannot make electronic payment the only option.⁶

Checks must be fully cashable at the issuing bank without restriction. Postdating a final check to push the effective payment past the statutory deadline is a violation, because the employee has to be able to access the money right away.

Payroll cards are permitted only when voluntary, and the employer must provide at least one free way each pay period for the employee to withdraw the full balance. Card fees that reduce the amount the employee actually receives mean wages weren’t paid in full. If a former employee’s bank account closed before the last deposit hit, the employer has to switch to a check or another compliant method. “We tried to direct deposit it” is not a defense.

Penalties for Getting It Wrong

The Department of Labor can act on its own or on a complaint, and administrative fines under RSA 275:51 compound when more than one employee is affected.⁷

The larger exposure sits in RSA 275:53. An employee can sue for the unpaid wages plus liquidated damages, and the court can add attorney’s fees and costs on top. A $3,000 dispute over a final paycheck can turn into a $6,000-plus liability once damages and fees are layered on. One or more employees can also designate a representative to bring the action, which opens the door to group claims when the underlying practice is systemic.⁸

If the same paycheck also violates the FLSA, for example by leaving out overtime, the federal statute of limitations is two years, extended to three years for a willful violation.⁹

What Happens If a Former Employee Files a Claim

How you respond in the first 10 days shapes the outcome. New Hampshire runs two tracks. A wage complaint is an informal report to the Department of Labor’s Inspection Division, which may follow up with a courtesy call, a warning letter, or an investigation. The employee can ask that their identity stay confidential at this stage.¹⁰

A wage claim is the formal process. The employee files a Wage Claim Form with the Hearings Bureau.¹¹ Once accepted, notice goes to the employer, who has 10 days to respond. Any objection is forwarded to the employee, who then has 10 days in writing to decide whether to proceed to an administrative hearing.¹² If the administrative process doesn’t resolve the matter, the employee can go to civil court under RSA 275:53 for wages, liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees.⁸ Under state law, employees generally have up to 36 months from when wages were due to file, a longer window than most employers assume.

New Hampshire also requires that each paycheck, including the final one, come with a written statement itemizing every deduction. When a claim is filed, documentation is the first thing the Department asks the employer for, and employers without clean records lose these disputes even when they actually paid correctly. If you discover after the fact that you missed a deadline, paying immediately and voluntarily is almost always cheaper than waiting to be forced.

1
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:44 – Employees Separated From Payroll Before Pay Days
2
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #56C: Bonuses Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
3
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:48 – Withholding of Wages
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 U.S. Code 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
5
State of New Hampshire Department of Labor. Wages and Work Hours FAQs
6
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:43 – Weekly or Biweekly
7
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:51 – Enforcement
8
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 275:53 – Employees’ Remedies
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
10
State of New Hampshire Department of Labor. Report a Wage Complaint
11
State of New Hampshire Department of Labor. File an Online Wage Claim
12
State of New Hampshire Department of Labor. Hearings