Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHCensus Surveys Put New Hampshire’s Veterans at 114,826 in 2010 and 81,535 in 2024. More Than Half Were 65 or Older.
The state’s adult civilian population grew by about 130,000 over the same years, so the veteran share of it fell from about one adult in nine to about one in fourteen. The figures are survey estimates, and the survey’s own definitions explain what they count.
Audio edition (7:56): a synthetic voice reads the article. The charts, tables and fact check are on this page.
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimated that 114,826 veterans lived in New Hampshire in 2010, or 11.1 percent of the state’s civilian population 18 and older. Its 2024 survey, the latest one-year release as published in October 2026, estimated 81,535, or 7.0 percent. That is about 33,300 fewer veterans, a drop of 29 percent, while the adult civilian population the survey measures grew from 1,029,988 to 1,159,526.
The decline is not a New Hampshire story alone. Nationally, the same survey’s veteran estimate fell from 21,798,077 in 2010 to 15,701,246 in 2024, a 28 percent drop, and the veteran share of civilian adults fell from 9.3 percent to 5.9 percent. What distinguishes New Hampshire’s veterans from the national picture is their age and the wars they served in.
The count, survey by survey
The figures below come from the survey’s detailed table B21001, which counts veterans among the civilian population 18 and older. Each is an estimate from a sample, published with a margin of error at 90 percent confidence: plus or minus 4,166 in 2010 and plus or minus 4,615 in 2024. The long decline is far larger than those margins. Some of the year-to-year moves are not. The 2019 estimate came in slightly above 2017’s, and the drop from 2023 to 2024 is smaller than the two years’ margins combined, so neither change can be told apart from sampling noise.
Veterans Living in New Hampshire, Census Survey Estimates
Civilian veterans 18 and older, with their share of all civilians 18 and older. Selected survey years. Bars are drawn to scale against 2010.
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey one-year estimates, table B21001, 2010 through 2024. Shares are Granite State Report arithmetic from the survey’s counts.
Who the 81,535 are
The survey’s 2024 subject table on veteran status, S2101, breaks the state’s veterans down by age, sex and period of service. More than half, 55 percent, were 65 or older: 18,528 were 65 to 74 and 26,304 were 75 or older. Nearly one in three New Hampshire veterans was 75 or older, against 29.1 percent nationally. Only 4,713, or 5.8 percent, were 18 to 34.
The Vietnam War was the largest single period of service. The table counts 28,008 New Hampshire veterans who served during it, 34.4 percent of the total. Veterans who served from September 2001 on made up 23.5 percent in New Hampshire, against 29.9 percent nationally. Women were 6,981 of the state’s veterans, or 8.6 percent; nationally the figure was 11.1 percent.
New Hampshire’s Veterans and the Nation’s, 2024
Share of civilian veterans 18 and older in each group, from the survey’s subject table S2101
| Group | New Hampshire | United States |
|---|---|---|
| Veterans as a share of civilians 18 and older | 7.0% | 5.9% |
| Age | ||
| 18 to 34 | 5.8% | 8.4% |
| 65 to 74 | 22.7% | 20.0% |
| 75 and older | 32.3% | 29.1% |
| Period of service (a veteran can fall in more than one) | ||
| September 2001 or later | 23.5% | 29.9% |
| August 1990 to August 2001 | 20.7% | 25.5% |
| Vietnam War | 34.4% | 31.3% |
| Korean War | 3.6% | 2.9% |
| World War II | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| Sex | ||
| Women | 8.6% | 11.1% |
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 American Community Survey one-year estimates, table S2101. The New Hampshire share of women is Granite State Report arithmetic from the table’s counts (6,981 of 81,535). Margins of error on the New Hampshire shares include ±2.3 points for Vietnam, ±2.6 for September 2001 or later and ±2.5 for 75 and older.
The period-of-service rows do not add to the total, for two reasons the survey’s subject definitions spell out. Respondents are told to mark every period in which they served, so a veteran whose service ran from the Vietnam War into the 1990s can appear in two rows. And veterans whose only service fell in peacetime stretches, such as the years between the Vietnam War and August 1990, appear in none of the wartime rows. The five rows above sum to 67,283, about 14,000 short of the 81,535 total.
New England, side by side
On the 2024 point estimates, New Hampshire’s veteran share, 7.0 percent, ranked 20th among the 50 states. Alaska’s was highest, at 9.9 percent. Within New England, only Maine’s was higher. New Hampshire also lost the smallest share of its veterans in the region from 2010 to 2024. Maine’s lead in the 2024 share, 0.56 of a point, is barely larger than the two estimates’ combined margin of error, and the difference between the two states’ losses is well inside the margins.
Veterans as a Share of Civilian Adults, New England, 2010 and 2024
Point estimates from the survey’s table B21001, with the change in each state’s estimated number of veterans
| State | 2010 | 2024 | Change in veterans |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maine | 12.2% | 7.6% | −31.5% |
| New Hampshire | 11.1% | 7.0% | −29.0% |
| Vermont | 9.8% | 5.7% | −36.9% |
| Rhode Island | 8.8% | 4.8% | −40.4% |
| Connecticut | 8.2% | 4.4% | −42.5% |
| Massachusetts | 7.8% | 3.9% | −42.8% |
| United States | 9.3% | 5.9% | −28.0% |
Granite State Report · Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey one-year estimates, table B21001, 2010 and 2024. Shares, changes and the state ranking are Granite State Report arithmetic from the survey’s counts. The ranking excludes the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico; with margins of error, states a few places apart cannot be ranked with confidence.
What the survey counts
The survey’s subject definitions describe veterans as men and women who served on active duty, even briefly, and are no longer serving, in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard, along with people who served in the Merchant Marine during World War II. Members of the National Guard or Reserves count as veterans only if they were ever called or ordered to active duty, not counting initial training or yearly summer camps. The tables cover civilians, so people on active duty are outside the count, and they cover only people 18 and older.
The definitions also name the survey’s limits. Some people may report active duty they did not have, including Guard and Reserve members never called to federal duty and civilian employees or volunteers of groups such as the USO and the Red Cross. Some may mark only their most recent period of service, or the period in which they began, rather than every period in which they served. The veteran status question was revised in 2013, which collapsed its response options from five to four. The definitions describe that change and do not say whether it moved the estimates.
The same document says why the count exists. The Department of Veterans Affairs uses the survey’s veteran data to measure veterans’ needs, and the definitions list uses that include planning medical and nursing home care, deciding where to put veterans’ cemeteries and how large to make them, and allocating money for veterans’ job training.
Granite State Report has covered the money side of that equation. In “The VA Spent $1.44 Billion in New Hampshire in Fiscal 2025”, it traced federal veterans spending in the state, and in “Defense Department Contracts for Work in New Hampshire Topped $2.5 Billion in Fiscal 2025”, it traced military contract dollars. The survey figures above describe the people at the other end of the first of those ledgers: fewer than in 2010, and older.
— Granite State Report
Your Turn
Tell us: are you a New Hampshire veteran, or do you look after one? Tell us what a statewide count like this one leaves out about the services you use or can’t reach. 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.
A narrated summary of this article (1:30), read by a synthetic voice. Photograph of the joint-service honor guard at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, Nov. 11, 2010: Staff Sgt. Curtis J. Lenz, U.S. Air Force, public domain. Charts: Granite State Report from U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey figures.
Fact check
| # | Claim | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The survey estimated 114,826 veterans in New Hampshire in 2010, 11.1 percent of civilians 18 and older (1,029,988), and 81,535 in 2024, 7.0 percent of 1,159,526. | VERIFIED | Census ACS one-year table B21001, 2010 and 2024; shares are Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 2 | About 33,300 fewer veterans, a 29 percent drop, while the adult civilian population grew by about 130,000. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from table B21001: 114,826 − 81,535 = 33,291; 1,159,526 − 1,029,988 = 129,538. |
| 3 | The 2024 one-year release was the latest as published in October 2026. | VERIFIED | U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 ACS Data Release Schedule (updated Oct. 13, 2026), which lists the 2025 one-year release for Oct. 29, 2026. |
| 4 | Nationally, veterans fell from 21,798,077 to 15,701,246, a 28 percent drop, and from 9.3 to 5.9 percent of civilian adults. | VERIFIED | Table B21001, United States, 2010 and 2024; Granite State Report arithmetic. |
| 5 | The yearly estimates and margins of error shown in the chart. | VERIFIED | Table B21001 for New Hampshire, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023, 2024. |
| 6 | The 2023-to-2024 drop (4,214) is smaller than the combined margins (about 6,470). | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic: √(4,529² + 4,615²) ≈ 6,466. |
| 7 | Age, sex and period-of-service counts and shares for New Hampshire and the nation, 2024; margins on the three New Hampshire shares. | VERIFIED | Census ACS one-year table S2101, 2024, New Hampshire and United States. |
| 8 | 55 percent of New Hampshire veterans were 65 or older; women were 8.6 percent. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from S2101: (18,528 + 26,304) ÷ 81,535 = 55.0%; 6,981 ÷ 81,535 = 8.6%. |
| 9 | Respondents mark every period served; peacetime-only veterans fall in no wartime row; the five rows sum to 67,283. | VERIFIED | Census Bureau, 2024 ACS subject definitions; Granite State Report arithmetic from S2101. |
| 10 | New Hampshire ranked 20th of 50 states on the 2024 share; Alaska was highest at 9.9 percent; only Maine was higher in New England. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from table B21001, 2024, all states. |
| 11 | New England shares for 2010 and 2024 and changes in veterans as shown. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from table B21001, 2010 and 2024. |
| 12 | Maine’s 2024 lead of 0.56 of a point barely exceeds the combined margin of error (about 0.53 of a point); the difference in the two states’ losses (31.5 and 29.0 percent, margins of about 3.9 and 4.8 points) is well inside the margins. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report arithmetic from table B21001 estimates and margins of error for Maine and New Hampshire, 2010 and 2024, using standard approximations for the margins of proportions and ratios. |
| 13 | The definition of veterans, the Guard and Reserve rule, the civilian and 18-and-older universe, the reporting limitations, the 2013 question revision and the listed VA uses. | ATTRIBUTED | Census Bureau, American Community Survey and Puerto Rico Community Survey 2024 Subject Definitions, veteran status section (paraphrased). |
| 14 | Earlier Granite State Report articles on VA spending and defense contracts. | VERIFIED | Granite State Report, Oct. 10 and Oct. 14, 2026. |
| 15 | The photograph shows a joint-service honor guard at the Veterans Day ceremony at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen on Nov. 11, 2010, taken by Staff Sgt. Curtis J. Lenz, U.S. Air Force, and is in the public domain. | VERIFIED | DVIDS image 1323451 description; Wikimedia Commons file page and license, read Oct. 15, 2026. |
Survey tables, program reports and the dates on them are what build the record. Confidentiality respected where possible. granitestatereport@gmail.com · (603) 931-9264.
Editor’s note. Veteran counts, shares by age, sex and period of service, and margins of error are drawn from U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey one-year tables B21001 (2010 through 2024) and S2101 (2024). Definitions and limitations are drawn from the Census Bureau’s 2024 subject definitions for the survey. Percentages, changes and rankings the Census Bureau did not state are Granite State Report arithmetic from its figures.
Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly and appends a dated note identifying what changed and when. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.
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