New Hampshire Employee Cost Calculator

An $85,000 hire in New Hampshire costs the employer about $109,151 a year at the defaults on this page, or $9,096 a month and $52.48 an hour on 2,080 hours. The $24,151 above salary is the burden: employer FICA, federal and state unemployment, workers comp, benefits, paid time off, and overhead. The calculator pre-fills New Hampshire's SUI estimate; every other field is editable.

New Hampshire charges state unemployment insurance on the first $14,000 of each employee's wages, at an estimated 2.7% for a new employer. On an $85,000 salary that is $378 for the year, $70 above the $308 median across the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The wage base is met in week 9 of a full-time year, so SUI stops accruing after that and the annual figure is the cap. Experience-rated employers pay more or less than the new-employer rate, so replace it with the rate on your annual notice.

New Hampshire has no state income tax on wages. That changes nothing in the employer's cost above, but an $85,000 salary goes further for the employee than the same salary in a taxing state, which can make a New Hampshire offer competitive at a lower number.

The largest line in the New Hampshire total is employer FICA at $6,503, which is federal and identical in every state. Benefits at 8.0% add $6,800, and 15 days of PTO cost $4,904 in salary paid for hours not worked. Workers comp at 1.5% adds $1,275; the real rate depends on the class code and on New Hampshire's rate filings, so replace the default with the rate on your policy.

For a staffing agency placing a W2 employee in New Hampshire at this salary, $109,151 is the floor a bill rate has to clear: $52.48 an hour before any gross margin. In New Hampshire, SUI is a larger share of that floor than in most states, so a bill rate built on the national 18% burden assumption will be short. Recover it in the markup.