RSA 275: New Hampshire Wage and Hour Requirements

RSA 275, New Hampshire’s “Protective Legislation” chapter, is the state’s core set of wage and hour requirements: it tells employers how often to pay, when a final paycheck is due, what they can deduct, what they must post and disclose, and how workers can enforce their rights. The New Hampshire Department of Labor administers the chapter, and it reaches almost every private and public employer in the state.¹ Violations can trigger civil penalties, liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages, and Commissioner orders that are enforced as court judgments.

How Often Wages Must Be Paid

Under RSA 275:43, every employer must pay on regular, pre-announced paydays. Weekly-paid employees must receive their wages within 8 days after the end of the work week. Biweekly-paid employees must be paid within 15 days. Anything less frequent than biweekly requires written approval from the Commissioner of Labor, and even then wages must be paid at least once a calendar month.²

Employers may pay by cash, check, electronic fund transfer, direct deposit, or payroll card. If the employer chooses an electronic method, it still has to give the worker the option of a check cashable at a financial institution convenient to the workplace. Direct deposit requires the employee’s written authorization, and the employee picks the bank.²

Payroll card programs carry extra rules. The employee must consent in writing after getting a plain-language disclosure of every known fee, consent cannot be a condition of employment, and the employee must have at least one free way each pay period to withdraw the full balance at a convenient location. The employer, not the worker, absorbs the program’s costs.²

Final Paychecks After Separation

RSA 275:44 sets different deadlines depending on how the job ended. The distinctions matter, and this is one of the areas where employers most often get caught out.

Fired: all wages due within 72 hours.
Laid off or affected by a labor dispute: wages due by the next regular payday, through the usual pay channel or by mail if the employee asks.
Quit without notice: wages due by the next regular payday.
Quit with at least one full pay period’s notice: all earned wages due within 72 hours.

An employer that willfully and without good cause misses these deadlines owes liquidated damages on top of the wages. The penalty accrues at 10 percent of the unpaid amount for each business day the payment is late, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, and it caps at a total equal to the unpaid wages. A worker owed $2,000 can end up collecting an additional $2,000 in damages if the delay runs long enough.³

When there is a real dispute over the amount owed, the employer must still pay whatever portion it agrees is due. Holding back the undisputed piece while arguing over the rest does not avoid the penalties.

Meal Breaks

RSA 275:30-a bars an employer from requiring anyone to work more than five consecutive hours without a half-hour lunch or eating period. The only exception is when the nature of the work makes it feasible for the employee to eat while working and the employer actually allows it.⁴

The statute does not require the break itself to be paid. If the worker is not fully relieved of duties during the break, though, that time is generally compensable work time under federal wage law. Someone answering the phone while eating a sandwich is working, not on break.

What Employers Can and Can’t Deduct

RSA 275:48 starts from a simple premise: an employer cannot withhold any portion of wages unless a specific exception applies. Allowable deductions fall into three narrow categories:

Deductions required by law, such as payroll taxes and court-ordered garnishments.
Deductions the employee has authorized in writing for a lawful purpose that benefits the employee, such as insurance premiums, retirement contributions, or union dues.
Deductions the employer and employee have agreed to in writing for other purposes, but only if the deduction gives the employer no financial advantage and does not make the employee pay for items required to do the job in the ordinary course of business.

⁵

That third category is where employers most often cross the line. Docking a paycheck for a broken tool, a cash register shortage, or damaged merchandise requires a separate voluntary written agreement, and even then it cannot cover items the employer required the employee to use on the job. Operational losses are a business cost, not something the payroll department can quietly shift onto the workforce.

Federal law adds a floor. Deductions for uniforms or their upkeep cannot bring a non-exempt employee’s pay below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour or eat into overtime. Because New Hampshire’s minimum wage tracks the federal rate, that limit applies statewide.⁶

Notices, Pay Stubs, and Records

RSA 275:49 imposes transparency duties that start at hiring and continue through employment. At the time of hire, the employer must tell each employee the rate of pay and the day and place of payment. Any change to those terms has to be communicated in writing before it takes effect.⁷

Beyond the hiring notice, employers must:

Make written policies for vacation, sick leave, and other fringe benefits available to employees or post them where employees can access them.
Give the employee an itemized statement of deductions for each pay period in which deductions are made under RSA 275:48.
Post the abstract of the protective legislation subdivision furnished by the Commissioner, including the criteria for classifying workers as employees or independent contractors, in an accessible place.
Post a separate notice explaining that paying different wages for the same work based on sex is illegal under state and federal law, with Department of Labor contact information for complaints.
Keep payroll records for three years and produce reports to the Commissioner when required.

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Access to Your Personnel File

RSA 275:56 gives every employee the right to inspect their own personnel file. On request, the employer must provide a reasonable opportunity to review it and, if asked, supply copies for a fee no higher than the actual reproduction cost.⁸

If you disagree with something in the file and the employer will not correct or remove it, you can submit a written rebuttal with supporting evidence. The employer must keep that statement permanently in the file and include it whenever the file, or the disputed information, is shared with anyone outside the company.⁸

Two narrow exceptions exist. The employer does not have to disclose file information if the employee is currently under investigation and disclosure would compromise law enforcement, or if the records relate to a government security investigation.

Retaliation Is Prohibited

RSA 275:38-a bars an employer from firing or discriminating against any employee who files a wage complaint with the employer or the Commissioner, starts a legal proceeding, or testifies in one. An individual who retaliates faces misdemeanor charges; a business entity faces felony charges.⁹

Federal law backs this up. Section 15(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits retaliation against employees who file complaints with the Wage and Hour Division, cooperate with an investigation, or simply ask to be paid correctly. Remedies include reinstatement, back pay, and liquidated damages equal to lost wages.¹⁰

How to File a Wage Complaint

If an employer has failed to pay wages, shorted a paycheck, or made unauthorized deductions, the worker can file a complaint directly with the New Hampshire Department of Labor through its online wage complaint form. The Inspection Division reviews each complaint and may respond with a courtesy call, warning letter, or formal investigation. If the Department believes its outreach could reveal the complainant’s identity, it will contact the worker in advance.¹¹

Under RSA 275:51, a wage claim can be brought by an employee or by the Department on its own, but it must be filed within 36 months of the date the wages were due. Once the employer is served, it has 10 days to object. If no objection is filed, the Commissioner can order payment. If the employer contests the claim, a hearing is held with evidence and cross-examination. The Commissioner’s decision, if not appealed within 20 days to the superior court, becomes final and enforceable as a court judgment, with a lien on the employer’s New Hampshire property for three years.¹²

Employer Penalties

The Department of Labor has several tools to penalize noncompliance, and the consequences stack:

Liquidated damages for late final pay at 10 percent of the unpaid wages per business day, capped at the total unpaid amount.³
A minimum civil penalty of $100 per violation for any section of the state labor laws.
Interest and a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per violation for willful violations of the personnel file access rules.
Criminal charges for retaliation: misdemeanor for an individual, felony for a business entity.⁹

Because unappealed Commissioner orders are enforced as court judgments, the Department does not need to file a separate lawsuit to collect. The order itself is the judgment.

Minimum Wage and Overtime Sit Under Federal Law

RSA 275 governs pay timing, deductions, breaks, and enforcement, but it does not set an independent minimum wage or overtime rate. New Hampshire’s minimum hourly rate tracks the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.⁶ Overtime comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires time-and-a-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek, with salaried employees classified as exempt required to earn at least $684 per week under the currently enforced federal threshold.¹³ Where state and federal rules overlap, the one more favorable to the employee applies.

1
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Protective Legislation
2
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:43 – Weekly or Biweekly
3
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:44 – Employees Separated From Payroll Before Pay Days
4
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:30-a – Lunch or Eating Period
5
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:48 – Withholding of Wages
6
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Minimum Wage
7
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:49 – Notification, Posting, and Records
8
Justia. New Hampshire Code 275:56 – Employee Access to Personnel Files
9
Justia. New Hampshire Code Chapter 275 – Protective Legislation
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Unlawful Retaliation Under the Laws Enforced by WHD
11
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Report a Wage Complaint
12
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 275:51 – Enforcement
13
U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay