New Hampshire non-compete agreement: the advance-notice statute, the low-wage worker protection, the reasonableness test, and what the framework means for employees
New Hampshire combines statutory requirements with a reasonableness test
New Hampshire enforces non-competes under a common-law reasonableness framework, supplemented by statutory provisions that impose an advance-notice requirement and protect low-wage workers. The combination places New Hampshire in the moderate-to-protective range — non-competes are enforceable, but procedural requirements and the low-wage protection create meaningful guardrails.
New Hampshire's statutory provisions are codified at RSA 275:70 (the advance-notice requirement) and RSA 275:70-a (the low-wage worker protection). These statutes layer specific requirements on top of the common-law reasonableness analysis that New Hampshire courts have long applied.
The advance-notice requirement
RSA 275:70 requires employers to provide a copy of a non-compete agreement to a prospective employee before the employee accepts the offer of employment. Specifically, an employer must provide the non-compete to a potential new employee before or concurrently with making an offer of change in job classification or an offer of employment.
The consequence of non-compliance is significant: a non-compete that wasn't disclosed in accordance with the statute is unenforceable. An employer who springs a non-compete on an employee after they've accepted the job — during onboarding, on the first day, or after the employee has resigned from a prior position and relocated — has a non-compete that violates the notice requirement and is void.
This advance-notice requirement serves the same policy as similar provisions in Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Connecticut: preventing employers from imposing non-competes on employees who have already committed to the job and lost their leverage to negotiate or decline. The employee must know about the non-compete before accepting the position.
The low-wage worker protection
RSA 275:70-a prohibits employers from requiring low-wage employees to enter into non-compete agreements. The statute defines a low-wage employee as one who earns an hourly rate less than or equal to 200% of the federal minimum wage.
With the federal minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, the threshold is $14.50 per hour. Employees earning at or below this rate cannot be bound by non-competes in New Hampshire. The statute makes such agreements void and unenforceable.
The threshold is relatively low — comparable to Maryland's $15-per-hour floor and tied to the federal minimum wage rather than to a higher income figure like the thresholds in Illinois, Colorado, or Washington. The protection reaches only the lowest-paid workers, leaving the broad middle range of employees subject to the common-law reasonableness analysis. But for the hourly workers it covers, the protection is categorical.
The common-law reasonableness framework
For employees above the low-wage threshold with properly disclosed agreements, New Hampshire enforces non-competes under a common-law reasonableness test. A non-compete is enforceable if it is reasonable — meaning it is no greater than necessary to protect the employer's legitimate business interest, does not impose an undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public interest.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has applied this framework through decisions including Technical Aid Corp. v. Allen (1989) and subsequent cases. The analysis is the familiar three-part reasonableness test, evaluating the legitimacy of the employer's interest, the proportionality of the restriction, and the impact on the employee and the public.
New Hampshire recognizes the standard protectable interests: trade secrets, confidential business information, customer relationships and goodwill, and specialized training. New Hampshire has adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (RSA 350-B), and the statutory definition informs the analysis. The employer must identify a specific protectable interest; a general desire to prevent competition is not enough.
Duration, geography, and scope
New Hampshire courts evaluate reasonableness across the standard dimensions.
For duration, one year is generally reasonable. Two years is upheld in many circumstances. Restrictions beyond two years face scrutiny in the employment context.
For geographic scope, the restriction must correspond to the employer's competitive territory and the employee's area of responsibility. New Hampshire's economy is concentrated in the southern part of the state (the region adjacent to the Massachusetts border and the greater Boston economic area), along with the seacoast region and the Manchester-Nashua corridor. Courts evaluate geographic restrictions with reference to the specific market the employee served.
The proximity to Massachusetts creates choice-of-law considerations. Many New Hampshire residents work in Massachusetts, and many employers operate in both states. Massachusetts's comprehensive non-compete statute — with its 12-month cap, garden-leave requirement, and termination protections — is substantially more protective than New Hampshire's framework. Employees who work in Massachusetts but live in New Hampshire (or vice versa) should consider which state's law actually governs.
For scope of activity, the restriction must be limited to genuinely competitive work that threatens the protectable interest.
New Hampshire's reformation approach
New Hampshire courts have authority to reform overbroad non-competes, narrowing an unreasonable restriction to a reasonable scope and enforcing the revised version. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has endorsed partial enforcement of restrictive covenants, allowing courts to enforce a non-compete to the extent it is reasonable.
This reformation authority places New Hampshire among the states where employers face limited risk from moderate overreach — the court will narrow rather than void. This distinguishes New Hampshire from strict no-reformation states like Wisconsin, Nebraska, and South Carolina. For employees, this means that overbreadth alone is unlikely to free them entirely — the stronger defenses are the procedural requirements (advance notice, low-wage protection) and the absence of a genuine protectable interest.
Consideration
New Hampshire's consideration rules follow general principles. For new employees, the employment constitutes adequate consideration. For existing employees, the consideration analysis turns on whether the employee received meaningful consideration for the new restriction. The advance-notice requirement interacts with consideration — because the statute requires disclosure before the offer is accepted, properly disclosed agreements for new employees have a clear consideration foundation in the employment itself.
The undue hardship and public interest analysis
New Hampshire's reasonableness framework requires courts to weigh the hardship enforcement would impose on the employee and whether enforcement would harm the public interest. These factors give New Hampshire employees defenses that don't exist in the most employer-friendly states.
The undue hardship analysis considers the employee's ability to earn a living during the restriction period, the availability of alternative employment outside the restricted scope, and the circumstances of the employee's departure. A restriction that would effectively prevent the employee from working in their field faces meaningful scrutiny, and the termination context matters — an employee terminated without cause presents a stronger hardship argument than one who left voluntarily.
The public interest analysis is most relevant in healthcare and professional services, where restricting a practitioner can reduce access to needed services. New Hampshire's healthcare sector, and the challenges of recruiting and retaining providers in the state's more rural areas, give the public-interest factor real weight in physician and healthcare non-compete cases.
Non-solicitation, non-disclosure, and trade secrets
New Hampshire employers commonly pair non-competes with, or substitute them for, narrower restrictive covenants. Customer non-solicitation agreements restrict the former employee from soliciting the employer's clients without barring competition generally, and New Hampshire courts evaluate them under a reasonableness standard. Because they impose less hardship than non-competes, they can be easier to sustain — and they are not subject to the same scrutiny under the undue-hardship analysis.
Non-disclosure agreements protecting genuine trade secrets and confidential information are governed by the New Hampshire Uniform Trade Secrets Act and general contract principles. An NDA restricts what the employee can disclose or use, not where the employee can work, and provides protection independent of any non-compete. The advance-notice and low-wage protections that apply to non-competes do not necessarily apply to NDAs in the same way, because an NDA is not a non-compete — it doesn't restrict the employee's ability to work, only their use of confidential information.
For an employer whose primary concern is protecting confidential information rather than preventing competition, a well-drafted NDA combined with a customer non-solicitation provision may achieve substantial protection even where a non-compete would face the procedural and substantive hurdles New Hampshire imposes. For employees, this means that even when a non-compete is void — because of the low-wage protection, the notice requirement, or unreasonableness — separate non-solicitation and confidentiality obligations may still apply, and each provision should be evaluated independently.
The technology and advanced manufacturing context
New Hampshire's technology and advanced manufacturing sectors, concentrated in the southern part of the state along the Massachusetts border, generate a significant share of the state's non-compete disputes. The region functions as an extension of the greater Boston technology economy, and many New Hampshire technology workers have access to proprietary technical information, product roadmaps, and customer relationships that constitute genuine confidential information.
These cases frequently involve the interaction between New Hampshire's framework and Massachusetts's more protective statute. A technology worker who lives in New Hampshire but works for a Massachusetts-based company, or who works in New Hampshire for a company with Massachusetts operations, may face a genuine question about which state's law governs. Massachusetts's 12-month cap, garden-leave requirement, and termination protections are substantially more favorable to employees than New Hampshire's framework, so the choice-of-law determination can be outcome-determinative.
For technology workers whose non-competes are governed by New Hampshire law, the protectable-interest question is often resolved in the employer's favor because the confidential information is genuine. The litigation typically focuses on the procedural requirements — whether the agreement was disclosed before the offer was accepted — and the reasonableness of the scope, rather than on whether a protectable interest exists. The advance-notice requirement is a particularly important defense in this context, because technology employers who present non-competes during onboarding rather than before the offer may have procedurally defective agreements.
The practical enforcement landscape
New Hampshire non-compete litigation is concentrated in the superior courts of Hillsborough County (Manchester and Nashua), Rockingham County (the seacoast and southern tier), and Merrimack County (Concord), along with the federal District of New Hampshire.
Enforcement is most common in technology, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and professional services. New Hampshire's technology and advanced manufacturing sectors, concentrated in the southern part of the state, generate a significant share of non-compete disputes.
The advance-notice requirement and the low-wage protection have changed employer behavior. Employers must disclose non-competes before extending offers, and many employers have stopped using non-competes for low-wage workers entirely. For the salaried, higher-earning employees who can be bound, the reasonableness framework and the reformation authority govern.
Litigation costs in New Hampshire are moderate: $20,000 to $100,000 through preliminary injunction is a reasonable range.
What New Hampshire employees should know
If you earn at or below 200% of the federal minimum wage ($14.50 per hour), your non-compete is void under RSA 275:70-a.
If your non-compete wasn't disclosed to you before you accepted the job offer, it violates the advance-notice requirement of RSA 275:70 and is unenforceable. This is a procedural defense that voids the agreement regardless of the reasonableness of its terms.
If you earn above the threshold and the agreement was properly disclosed, the reasonableness test governs. The employer must identify a genuine protectable interest, and the restriction must be reasonable in duration, geography, and scope. New Hampshire courts will consider the hardship enforcement would impose on you.
If the agreement is overbroad, New Hampshire courts will reform it rather than void it, so overbreadth alone is unlikely to free you entirely. Your stronger defenses are the procedural requirements and the absence of a protectable interest.
If you work in Massachusetts but live in New Hampshire, or vice versa, the choice-of-law analysis matters — Massachusetts's framework is substantially more protective.
If you're negotiating a severance agreement, the procedural requirements and the reasonableness framework give you arguments for release or narrowing.
The national overview positions New Hampshire as a moderate-to-protective state — the advance-notice requirement and low-wage protection provide statutory guardrails, while the reasonableness framework and reformation authority keep the framework within the enforceable range for properly disclosed agreements with higher-earning employees.