Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHTaxes on Business Income Brought In a Third of New Hampshire’s State Tax Collections in Fiscal 2025. The Next-Highest State Was Alaska, at About a Fifth.
The U.S. Census Bureau counted $3.37 billion in New Hampshire state tax collections for the year ended June 30, 2025, and $1.11 billion of it on the line for taxes on corporate and business net income. In each of the bureau’s 10 annual counts from fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, no state had a larger share there. The line for taxes on individuals’ income, where the bureau places taxes on interest and dividends, fell by half in the fiscal year the state’s Interest and Dividends Tax repeal took effect.
Audio edition (10:06): a synthetic voice reads the article text. The charts, tables and fact check are on this page.
In the Census Bureau’s count, New Hampshire’s state government has no general sales tax and only a small line for taxes on individuals’ income, so the money it collects in taxes comes from a long list of narrower ones. The Census Bureau sorts every state’s collections into 25 categories. In its count for fiscal 2025, which ran from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025, New Hampshire’s state government collected $3,372.5 million. The biggest single line, $1,111.0 million or 32.9 percent, was what the bureau calls corporation net income taxes.
That share was the highest of any state. Alaska was next at 21.7 percent, and the figure for the 50 states together was 10.7 percent. New Hampshire has held the top spot on that measure in every one of the bureau’s annual counts from fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, the 10 years in this analysis.
What the count covers
The bureau’s Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections counts taxes collected by the 50 state governments. Local governments are left out, so the property taxes that towns, cities, school districts and counties raise on their own are not in these figures. New Hampshire’s line for property taxes, $413.7 million in fiscal 2025, is what the bureau credited to state government.
The bureau sets the categories. Its methodology for the 2025 survey says that while the records come from the states, “the classification of finances among the different categories is entirely the responsibility of the Census Bureau.” The bureau’s files give amounts by category. They do not name the New Hampshire tax behind each one, and the bureau’s figures can differ from those the state publishes, because the bureau defines “state government” its own way.
The bureau’s classification manual, in its 2006 edition, defines the corporation net income line as taxes on corporations and unincorporated businesses, taxed separately from individual income, “measured by net income.” New Hampshire’s Business Profits Tax, RSA 77-A, is imposed on the taxable business profits of business organizations; the statute set the rate at 7.5 percent for taxable periods ending on or after Dec. 31, 2023. The state also levies a Business Enterprise Tax under RSA 77-E; Granite State Report examined a proposed cut to it in “The Business Tax Rate Cut Is Dead. New Hampshire Republicans Passed a Smaller Deal Instead.” The bureau’s files do not name the New Hampshire tax or taxes counted on that line.
New Hampshire State Tax Collections, Fiscal 2025
Millions of dollars, by Census Bureau category, for the year ended June 30, 2025. Bars are drawn to scale against the largest line. Total: $3,372.5 million.
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections, FY2025 detailed table and flat file. Shares and the “all other” line are Granite State Report arithmetic from the bureau’s figures, which are in thousands of dollars.
Ten years at the top
The business income line has grown faster than New Hampshire’s collections as a whole. In the bureau’s fiscal 2016 count it was $700.2 million, 25.4 percent of $2,755.0 million. It peaked at $1,271.6 million in fiscal 2023, 36.7 percent of the total, and in fiscal 2025 it was about 59 percent larger than in fiscal 2016, while total collections were about 22 percent larger. From fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025 it fell 8.8 percent, and total collections fell 3.6 percent.
New Hampshire’s Business Income Line, Fiscal 2016 to 2025
Millions of dollars, from each year’s Census Bureau table as published. Rank is New Hampshire’s place among the 50 states by the share of state tax collections on the corporation net income line.
| Fiscal year | Total state taxes | Corporation net income taxes | Share of total | Rank | Individual income taxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | $2,755.0 | $700.2 | 25.4% | 1st | $94.0 |
| 2017 | $2,592.0 | $573.7 | 22.1% | 1st | $65.5 |
| 2018 | $2,920.9 | $790.0 | 27.0% | 1st | $105.8 |
| 2019 | $2,934.4 | $831.8 | 28.3% | 1st | $122.6 |
| 2020 | $2,807.1 | $780.7 | 27.8% | 1st | $122.6 |
| 2021 | $3,317.3 | $1,010.0 | 30.4% | 1st | $127.0 |
| 2022 | $3,510.8 | $1,213.0 | 34.6% | 1st | $153.6 |
| 2023 | $3,461.5 | $1,271.6 | 36.7% | 1st | $149.5 |
| 2024 | $3,496.6 | $1,218.6 | 34.9% | 1st | $183.4 |
| 2025 | $3,372.5 | $1,111.0 | 32.9% | 1st | $91.2 |
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections, detailed tables for fiscal 2016 through 2025. Shares and ranks are Granite State Report arithmetic; the District of Columbia is excluded from the ranking. The bureau’s 2025 release also revised fiscal 2023 and 2024, so its figures for those years can differ from the earlier tables shown.
The bureau itself warns against reading too much into state rankings. Its methodology says “analysis based on rankings or per capita statistics can be misleading and misinterpreted because of subtle yet important differences in state government organization and economic structure,” and that its figures reflect taxes a state collects from activity within it, “not necessarily from its people within a state.” A large share on one line also reflects how little a state collects on others. New Hampshire’s share is high in part because the two lines that brought in 64.6 percent of all state tax collections nationally in fiscal 2025, the general sales tax and the individual income tax, are zero or small here.
The interest and dividends line
The bureau’s manual puts taxes on special types of income, such as interest and dividends, on the individual income tax line. The bureau’s files do not name the New Hampshire tax counted there. New Hampshire’s figure on that line was $183.4 million in fiscal 2024, the highest of the 10 years. In fiscal 2025 it was $91.2 million, down 50.3 percent.
The New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration announced in January 2025 that taxpayers no longer had to pay the Interest and Dividends Tax for tax periods beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2025. House Bill 2, passed in the 2023 session and signed by Gov. Chris Sununu, moved the repeal up from 2026, the department said. The legislature had phased the rate down first: 5 percent for tax periods ending before Dec. 31, 2023, then 4 percent, then 3 percent for periods ending on or after Dec. 31, 2024. Under that last rate, the tax applied to residents with more than $2,400 in interest and dividend income filing individually, or more than $4,800 filing jointly.
Fiscal 2025 straddled the change. It began six months before the repeal took effect, and the department said returns for the 2024 tax year were still required by their statutory due dates. The department also said overpayments for 2024 would be refunded unless applied to prior balances due, and the bureau counts collections net of refunds. Fiscal 2026, which began July 1, 2025, is the first state fiscal year to fall entirely after the repeal took effect.
Granite State Report covered the repeal and the arguments over it in “Live Free and Pay Nothing? The Paradox at the Heart of New Hampshire’s Tax System”. The Census figures here add the bureau’s count of what the line brought in before and after.
Around New England
Across New England, New Hampshire’s mix stands apart. The other five states collected from 26.9 percent (Vermont) to 53.0 percent (Massachusetts) of their state taxes on the individual income line in fiscal 2025, and all five had a general sales tax. New Hampshire had no general sales tax line, and its individual income line, the one where the bureau’s manual places taxes on interest and dividends, was 2.7 percent.
New England State Tax Mix, Fiscal 2025
Share of each state government’s tax collections, by Census Bureau category
| State | Total state taxes ($ millions) | Individual income | Corporation net income | General sales | Property |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | $24,753.8 | 45.3% | 14.1% | 25.3% | none |
| Maine | $6,917.2 | 39.5% | 5.9% | 34.3% | 0.7% |
| Massachusetts | $46,172.9 | 53.0% | 13.8% | 21.0% | 0.0% |
| New Hampshire | $3,372.5 | 2.7% | 32.9% | none | 12.3% |
| Rhode Island | $5,470.8 | 33.4% | 9.7% | 30.6% | 0.1% |
| Vermont | $5,205.9 | 26.9% | 5.5% | 11.9% | 28.7% |
| 50 states | $1,535,843.7 | 33.7% | 10.7% | 30.9% | 1.7% |
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, FY2025 State Tax Collections Detailed Table. Shares are Granite State Report arithmetic. “None” means the bureau marks the category as not applicable to that state. Massachusetts’s state property line, $17.8 million, rounds to zero.
In the bureau’s fiscal 2025 table, four states had no general sales tax line: Alaska, Delaware, Montana and New Hampshire. Of those, only Alaska and New Hampshire also had little or nothing on the individual income line; Alaska had none.
A narrated summary of this article (1:11), read by a synthetic voice. Photograph of the State House: Quintin Soloviev, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped. Footage of a covered bridge in winter, an excerpt from a video its maker titled “Drone view of North Conway in New Hampshire”: GUÍAS VIAJAR, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, trimmed and scaled. Charts: Granite State Report from Census Bureau figures. Granite State Report offers this video under CC BY 4.0; the photograph and footage remain under their own licenses.
What the numbers do not show
These are collections by a state government, not a measure of what any household pays. They leave out local property taxes, which in New Hampshire are raised by towns, cities, school districts and counties; Granite State Report explained how those bills are built in “Why Are New Hampshire Property Taxes So High? The Four Lines on Your Bill, Explained”. They come from administrative records that the bureau sorts into its own categories, and the bureau’s 2025 release also revised fiscal 2023 and 2024, so its figures for those years can differ from the earlier tables used here. The year-over-year changes in this article compare fiscal 2025 with fiscal 2024 as first published. And they show what came in without explaining it: a one-year change on the business income line can follow profits, rates or the timing of payments and refunds, and the bureau’s files do not separate those.
What the files do show is a decade of the same pattern. New Hampshire’s state government has raised a larger share of its tax money from business income than any other state in each of the counts from fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, and in fiscal 2025 the individual income line, where the bureau’s manual places taxes on interest and dividends, was down by half.
— Granite State Report
Your Turn
Tell us: if you run a business in New Hampshire, which state tax do you notice most, and which one would you change first? Write to granitestatereport@gmail.com. No person or agency named in this article was asked to comment for it. Any of them may write to the same address; a response will be added here with its date.
Fact check
| # | Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire state tax collections were $3,372.5 million in fiscal 2025, the year ended June 30, 2025. | VERIFIED | Census FY2025 detailed table, T00 = 3,372,460 (thousands); 2025 methodology, fiscal years ending June 30 except four named states. |
| 2 | Corporation net income taxes were $1,111.0 million, 32.9 percent; Alaska next at 21.7 percent; 50 states 10.7 percent. | VERIFIED | Census FY2025 detailed table (T41, T00); shares are Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 3 | New Hampshire ranked first among the 50 states by corporation net income share in each count, fiscal 2016 through 2025, with the totals, line amounts and shares shown in the table. | VERIFIED | Census detailed tables FY2016–FY2025, as published in each year’s file; Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 4 | The fiscal 2025 amounts and shares by category in the bar chart, including $413.7 million in property taxes credited to the state and $38.9 million in sports betting, including pari-mutuels. | VERIFIED | Census FY2025 detailed table and flat file; item code list (T18 sports betting; T14 pari-mutuels included in T18 beginning in 2023). |
| 5 | The business income line grew about 59 percent from fiscal 2016 and total collections about 22 percent; it fell 8.8 percent and total collections 3.6 percent from fiscal 2024 to 2025. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from Census tables: 1,110,991 ÷ 700,237 = 1.587; 3,372,460 ÷ 2,754,952 = 1.224; (1,110,991 − 1,218,620) ÷ 1,218,620 = −8.8%; (3,372,460 − 3,496,616) ÷ 3,496,616 = −3.6%. |
| 6 | Local governments are excluded; the categories are the bureau’s; the quoted sentences on classification and on rankings; bureau figures may differ from state figures because of its definition of state government; the 2025 release also includes revisions to fiscal 2023 and 2024; data are subject to revision each year. | VERIFIED | Census, 2025 State Government Tax Collections Methodology. |
| 7 | The manual’s definitions of the corporation net income, individual income (interest and dividends), other selective sales (meals, hotel/motel) and documentary transfer lines. | VERIFIED | Census, Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual (2006), codes T19, T40, T41, T51. |
| 8 | RSA 77-A imposes the Business Profits Tax on taxable business profits of business organizations at 7.5 percent for taxable periods ending on or after Dec. 31, 2023; RSA 77-E is the Business Enterprise Tax. | VERIFIED | RSA 77-A:2 (gc.nh.gov), which imposes the tax “upon the taxable business profits of every business organization”; RSA 77-E chapter heading, “Business Enterprise Tax” (gc.nh.gov). |
| 9 | The individual income line was $183.4 million in fiscal 2024 and $91.2 million in fiscal 2025, down 50.3 percent. | VERIFIED | Census FY2024 and FY2025 tables (T40: 183,359 and 91,186); Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 10 | The Interest and Dividends Tax repeal: effective for periods beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2025; HB 2 of the 2023 session, signed by Gov. Sununu, accelerated it from 2026; 5, 4 and 3 percent phase-down; $2,400 and $4,800 thresholds; 2024 returns still due by statutory due dates; 2024 overpayments refunded unless applied to prior balances due. | VERIFIED | N.H. Department of Revenue Administration release, Jan. 23, 2025. |
| 11 | New England shares in fiscal 2025 as shown; four states had no general sales tax line (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire); Alaska had no individual income line. | VERIFIED | Census FY2025 detailed table and flat file (X marks a category as not applicable); Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 12 | The State House photograph is CC BY 4.0 by Quintin Soloviev, March 2025; the diner photograph is CC BY-SA 4.0 by Amidamelio, April 2015, at the Londonderry travel plaza off Exit 5 of I-93; the video footage is CC BY 3.0 by GUÍAS VIAJAR, described by its uploader as a wooden bridge over a frozen river at North Conway. | VERIFIED | Wikimedia Commons file pages, read Oct. 6, 2026. |
Revenue reports, tax returns made public, budget documents and the dates on them are what build the record. Confidentiality respected where possible. granitestatereport@gmail.com · (603) 931-9264.
Editor’s note. Tax collection figures are drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections, detailed tables for fiscal 2016 through fiscal 2025, its 2025 methodology and item code list, and its Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual. Details of the Interest and Dividends Tax repeal are drawn from a January 2025 New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration release; business tax details are from RSA 77-A and RSA 77-E. Shares, ranks and percentage changes are Granite State Report arithmetic from the bureau’s figures.
Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly. Each correction note runs at the top of the article and states what the earlier version said, what is correct, what was changed, and the date and time of the change. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.
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