Retiring to New Hampshire at 62 on $900,000: What the Granite State's Tax Math Actually Means
New Hampshire routinely tops national rankings for safety, levies no broad-based income tax, no sales tax, and offers mountain views that retirees across the Sun Belt envy. At 62, retirement feels close enough to reach for it. And $900,000 looks like a solid nest egg. But the real question is whether the numbers still work once you factor in the property tax bills that quietly vary from town to town — and whether the traditional 4% withdrawal rule is even the right framework anymore.
New Hampshire ranks 6th overall on the 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index, first on sales tax, and 12th on individual income tax — the part everyone quotes. What gets left out: property tax rank of 39. The state funds itself at the local level, and effective rates in desirable towns run high enough that a modest three-bedroom home carries an annual bill between $7,000 and $10,000. On a per-capita basis, the adjusted state and local tax burden lands at $5,250, third-lowest in the country, but that average hides enormous variation between towns. Concord and Keene look nothing like Rye or New London. Choosing the wrong municipality effectively imports an income tax you cannot deduct, because there is no state return to itemize against.
The broader context: New Hampshire’s cost of living index sits at 104.165, just above the national average — meaningfully cheaper than Massachusetts (105.757) but higher than Maine and Vermont. For a retiree, this means housing and utilities eat a larger share of the budget than in many peer states, even before property taxes are layered in.
Every retiree has heard of the 4% rule, but that framework treats your portfolio as a slow liquidation machine. It often leaves retirees with seven-figure accounts agonizing over a dinner out, and it does not account for the fact that expenses like property taxes never amortize away the way a mortgage does.
There is a more modern approach: building an income floor — dividends, interest, and Social Security that cover essential bills every month — so you never have to sell shares into a down market to pay property taxes or medical costs. This becomes critical at 62, because property taxes do not scale down when your portfolio does. And unlike a mortgage, they never disappear.
Our free reader guide, The 4% Rule Is Broken, walks through the income floor strategy in about 15 minutes. Access the report here.
Assume a paid-off or nearly paid-off home worth roughly $450,000 — reasonable for a non-coastal town given the Case-Shiller national index sitting at 332.7 in April 2026, near a 90th-percentile reading. For a single retiree, a realistic annual budget runs about $47,000, including property taxes, utilities, health insurance premiums, food, transportation, and a modest travel fund. For a couple, plan on $62,000 to $68,000.
Take the single case. Claiming Social Security at 62 rather than full retirement age costs up to a 30% reduction, versus about an 8% annual bump for each year deferred to 70. A worker with a benefit of $2,400 at FRA collects about $1,680 at 62, or roughly $20,000 a year, indexed by the 2.8% COLA that took effect in 2026. Against a $47,000 budget, the portfolio needs to cover about $27,000 a year. On $900,000, that is a 3% withdrawal rate — which works because the property is largely paid off. Layer in a mortgage and the same portfolio breaks.
The stronger play is delaying Social Security to full retirement age. Live on the portfolio from 62 to 67 at roughly $47,000 a year, drawing about $235,000 over five years, then let a full benefit near $29,000 annually take the lead. Post-67 withdrawal drops toward $18,000 on a still-substantial balance, and longevity risk shrinks materially.
Medicare does not arrive until 65. The 2026 Part B standard premium is $202.90 a month, with the Part A hospital deductible at $1,736. For the three years before that, ACA marketplace coverage governs, and premium tax credits phase out based on modified adjusted gross income. New Hampshire quietly rewards the retiree here: because the state has no tax on wages or ordinary income, MAGI planning is a purely federal exercise. Draw from a taxable brokerage account with a low cost basis, harvest some long-term gains, keep MAGI under the ACA cliff, and there is no state return chasing you. Contrast that with Massachusetts or Vermont, where every Roth conversion or capital gain also gets taxed at the state level. The ACA bridge in NH is meaningfully cheaper for the same drawdown pattern.
The impact of these choices is not trivial. A retiree who picks the wrong town — one with a property tax rate above $25 per $1,000 of assessed value — can see an effective annual tax bill of $11,250 on a $450,000 home. That alone eats up more than a quarter of the portfolio draw. Conversely, a town with a rate under $15 per $1,000 drops the tax to $6,750, improving the withdrawal rate to under 2.5%. The difference is the equivalent of a part-time job.
A single retiree at 62, with a paid-off house in a moderate-tax NH town, can make $900,000 last on a 3% initial withdrawal rate paired with Social Security delayed to full retirement age. That assumes a portfolio yielding a real return around 4%, plausible with 10-year Treasuries at 4.63% anchoring a balanced allocation of index funds, dividend ETFs, and a treasury ladder covering the bridge years.
A couple wanting the same lifestyle needs closer to $1.2 million, or one Social Security check claimed at FRA plus a smaller one taken early, or a town where the tax bill starts with a 4 instead of an 8. The number that matters most is the property tax line on page one of the town warrant, not the portfolio itself. Get that right, and $900,000 in New Hampshire at 62 is a workable retirement. Get it wrong, and no withdrawal rate saves you.
Take your essential monthly expenses and subtract your guaranteed income — Social Security, plus any pension. What's left is your income gap, and how you close it determines whether retirement runs on share sales or on a paycheck your portfolio writes you every month. Our free reader guide, The 4% Rule Is Broken, shows exactly how to close that gap with portfolio income: a worked example (one retiree needed about $480,000 in income-producing assets to cover his essentials for good), an eight-point conversion checklist, and the 20-year numbers comparing dividends to withdrawals. It's free and takes about 15 minutes to read. Get the guide here before you take your next withdrawal.
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