In Manchester the old Amoskeag mills along the Merrimack, once the largest textile operation in the world, now hold offices, tech companies and a museum. Converting them took general contractors who could juggle structure, code and a dozen trades at once. The same job, at house scale, is what a homeowner in Bedford, Exeter or Hanover is hiring for when they call a GC for an addition or a whole-floor renovation. In New Hampshire you do it with less help from the state than almost anywhere in New England.
No state license, no registry: what the 2026 law did
New Hampshire has no general contractor license and no home-improvement contractor registration. In 2026 the Senate took up SB 523, which began as a bill to register residential builders. It was rewritten into a committee to study how a registration system might work, and signed on July 2, 2026 as Chapter 258 (SB 523 bill status). So the legislature is studying a registry; there is still no list to look a builder up on.
What that means for you: a contractor in Windham or Hopkinton can be excellent, or can have walked off three jobs last year, and no state record will tell you which. Your checking has to be direct.
- References you call. Ask for three recent clients with similar projects, and one from a job two or three years old. Ask them about the schedule, the change orders and how problems were handled.
- Insurance. A certificate of liability insurance and, if the contractor has employees, workers' compensation, sent to you by the insurance agent.
- Complaints. The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Bureau, which takes calls at 603-271-3641, can tell you whether it has complaints on file. Its scam alert also lists the hotline, 1-888-468-4454.
- The subs' licenses. The GC does not need one, but the plumber, electrician and gas fitter on the job do. Get their names and look each up on the OPLC verification page.
Deposits when no statute sets a ceiling
Massachusetts caps a home-improvement deposit at a third; New Hampshire sets no cap at all. The first payment is whatever you sign. A few habits keep the risk sensible:
- Tie the deposit to something concrete, such as ordering windows or cabinets with long lead times, and ask to see the order.
- Tie later payments to stages you can see: foundation poured, framing inspected, rough-ins passed, drywall up.
- Hold a final payment, often 10% or so, until the punch list is done and the town has signed off the permit.
- Never pay ahead of the work. If you are paying for the roof before the walls are up, the contractor is spending your money on someone else's job.
The written contract does the work a license would
With no state contract law for home improvement, the paper you sign is the whole deal. A strong New Hampshire contract states the scope in detail, with drawings or a specification; the price and whether it is fixed or cost-plus; the payment schedule; a start date and a target finish; who obtains permits; how change orders are priced and approved (in writing, before the work); what happens if the contractor finds rot or a hidden problem; warranty terms; and cleanup.
If the contractor sold you the job at your kitchen table, the federal FTC rule gives you three business days to cancel a home sale of $25 or more, and the seller must tell you so (16 CFR Part 429). And if a contractor deceives you, the state's Consumer Protection Act makes unfair or deceptive acts in trade unlawful (RSA 358-A:2); the Bureau enforces it, and you can bring a case yourself.
Permit fees in Manchester, and the 2024 code switch
Permits come from your town. In Manchester, the fee schedule charges a new one- or two-family house at 0.6% of its cost and additions, decks and renovations at 1%, plus $25 on every building permit. A $150,000 addition there carries about $1,525 in building permit fees before plumbing, electrical and mechanical permits. In towns with no building inspector, permit practice varies, and some work needs no local permit at all.
The code itself changed this year. RSA 155-A:1 now adopts the 2024 international residential and building codes, with state amendments, effective July 1, 2026. Through December 31 a permit can still be filed under the 2021 set; from January 1, 2027 only the 2024 set applies. If your project will be permitted around the new year, ask which code your plans are drawn to.
Running an addition in the Upper Valley versus the southern tier
Where you live changes how a GC runs the job. In Bedford, Londonderry or Stratham there are many contractors and many subs, and a busy GC may run three jobs at once with a site supervisor at each. In Hanover, Lebanon, Henniker or New London, a good builder may be booked a year out, and the subs they rely on may cover half a county. Ask:
- Who will be on site day to day, and how often will you see the owner of the company?
- Which subs do you use for plumbing, electrical and HVAC, and how long have you worked with them?
- How do you handle winter: will the shell be closed before snow, and who heats the site?
- How will you protect the rest of the house, and where will the dumpster and materials go?
Ask also how the contractor handles a schedule that slips. A clause that names a target finish date, says how delays caused by weather or late materials are handled, and gives you a way out if work stops for a set number of weeks without explanation is worth more than any promise made at the kitchen table. Contractors who have run many jobs usually welcome that clarity; it protects them from a client who changes the plan every week.
Pricing a $20,200 to $30,800 project
A typical New Hampshire general contracting project runs about $20,200 to $30,800 in the New Hampshire general contractor cost estimate. That is the size of a modest renovation. Additions, second stories and gut renovations cost several times more.
Compare bids on the same scope. A bid that is much lower than the others often has allowances, for fixtures or cabinets, set unrealistically low, which turn into change orders later. Ask each contractor to list allowances separately and to tell you what they expect the real number to be. There is no sales tax on materials in New Hampshire, which helps the budget, but labor is the larger share of most jobs.
