New Hampshire

New Hampshire Recording Laws (2026): All-Party Consent Rules

By Recording Law Editorial TeamPublished June 5, 202611 min read

New Hampshire is an all-party consent state. Under RSA 570-A:2, every participant in a conversation must consent before it may be recorded. Recording without all-party consent is a crime (Class B felony for a third-party eavesdropper; Class B misdemeanor if you are a party to the call) and creates civil liability under RSA 570-A:11.

New Hampshire recording law at a glance

Question	Answer
Consent rule	All-party (every participant must consent)
Main statute	RSA 570-A:2
When recording is illegal	Any time a party does not consent to being recorded
Criminal penalty (third-party)	Class B felony: up to 7 years / $4,000 fine
Criminal penalty (participant)	Class B misdemeanor (default): no jail / max $1,200 fine; State may elect Class A: up to 1 year / $2,000
Civil penalty	$100/day or $1,000 min. + actual + punitive + attorney fees
Hidden cameras / voyeurism	Class A misdemeanor (RSA 644:9); Class B felony on repeat or if victim is under 18
Recording police	Protected by First Amendment in public (Glik v. Cunniffe, 1st Cir. 2011) via federal courts; RSA 91-A explicitly allows recording at public meetings

For a deeper analysis of every topic below, see the New Hampshire recording laws in depth section.

Recording in-person conversations in New Hampshire

New Hampshire's all-party consent rule under RSA 570-A:2 applies to any "oral communication," defined in RSA 570-A:1 as a spoken statement made where the speaker has a reasonable expectation the words will not be intercepted. That expectation-of-privacy requirement matters: a shouted exchange on a public street where neither party expects confidentiality is less likely to qualify than a private conversation in a home or office.

The key rule is simple. If you are in a conversation in New Hampshire, you need consent from every other person in the room before you press record. There is no "I'm a party to it" exception for civilians. One-party consent is the federal floor under 18 U.S.C. § 2511, but New Hampshire's stricter standard overrides it for recordings made in this state.

The statute distinguishes two situations. If you are not part of the conversation and you secretly intercept it, that is a Class B felony. If you are part of the conversation but you record without getting consent from the other participants, that is a Class B misdemeanor under the separate provision at RSA 570-A:2, I-a. Both are illegal; only the severity differs.

landlord with a clipboard standing in a doorway speaking with a tenant, threshold of an apartment visible behind, daylig

Recording phone calls in New Hampshire

The same all-party consent requirement applies to telephone calls, whether landline, cell, or VoIP. Under RSA 570-A:2, "telecommunication" is covered alongside "oral communication," so every person on the call must agree to the recording before it begins.

Interstate calls create a wrinkle. In State v. Hersom (2025), the New Hampshire Supreme Court emphasized that for RSA 570-A to apply, the State must prove the recording was made in New Hampshire. If the device doing the recording is located outside NH, the stricter NH rule may not govern. Even so, the safest practice is to obtain all-party consent before recording any call with a New Hampshire connection.

For a full analysis of call recording rules, see New Hampshire Phone Call Recording Laws.

Hidden cameras, doorbells, and nanny cams

RSA chapter 570-A governs audio interception only. Silent video recording in a public space, where no audio is captured, is not an "interception" under RSA 570-A and does not require consent. The moment a video recording also captures audio, even incidentally, it falls within the all-party consent framework.

For video in private spaces, RSA 644:9 is the controlling statute. It is a Class A misdemeanor to install or use any device to observe, photograph, or record a person's private body parts without consent, or to record activity in a private place such as a bathroom, locker room, or changing room. A second offense (or any offense involving a victim under 18) rises to a Class B felony.

RSA 644:9-a is New Hampshire's non-consensual intimate image statute, updated in 2024 to cover synthetic and AI-generated images. Purposefully disseminating an intimate image (real or AI-generated) of an identifiable person without consent and with intent to harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce is a Class B felony. The synthetic-image provision took effect January 1, 2025.

Homeowners may install security cameras on their own property, including doorbell cameras, but should avoid capturing audio of conversations in areas where guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A camera that records audio inside a home or on a private porch falls under RSA 570-A's all-party consent requirement. For more detail, see New Hampshire Security Camera Laws and New Hampshire Voyeurism Laws.

therapist in three-quarter view seated on a chair with a small notebook resting on her lap taking notes, a client seated

Penalties for illegal recording in New Hampshire

Criminal penalties depend on whether you were a party to the conversation:

Offense	Statute	Class	Max Prison	Max Fine
Third-party interception (not a party)	RSA 570-A:2, I	Class B felony	7 years	$4,000
Participant recording (you are a party)	RSA 570-A:2, I-a	Class B misdemeanor (default)	None	$1,200
Participant recording (State elects upgrade)	RSA 570-A:2, I-a / RSA 625:9, IV(c)(2)	Class A misdemeanor	1 year	$2,000

The mental-state distinction drives the tier. Willfully intercepting a conversation you are not part of is the felony. Knowingly recording your own conversation without all-party consent is the misdemeanor. That same distinction also controls admissibility: after State v. Clark (2024 N.H. 64), suppression under RSA 570-A:6 is triggered only by a felony violation, not by a misdemeanor participant recording.

Civil remedies under RSA 570-A:11: any person whose communication was illegally intercepted, disclosed, or used may sue for liquidated damages of $100 per day of violation or $1,000, whichever is greater, plus actual damages if greater, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney fees. A civil action may proceed whether or not the violation was criminally prosecuted.

New Hampshire common law adds an independent layer. In Hamberger v. Eastman, 106 N.H. 107 (1964), the state Supreme Court held a landlord liable for invasion of privacy after installing listening devices in a tenant's bedroom, establishing that NH common law protects reasonable privacy expectations beyond the RSA 570-A framework.

two business professionals shaking hands across a small meeting table, both in three-quarter view, a printed paper agend

Recording the police in New Hampshire

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held in Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), that the First Amendment clearly protects the right to record police officers performing their duties in public. This precedent binds NH federal courts (the U.S. District of New Hampshire and the First Circuit) and protects citizens in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights actions. It does not automatically override RSA 570-A in state criminal proceedings.

New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law (RSA 91-A) explicitly permits recording at public meetings of government bodies. Under RSA 91-A:2, II, no government body may prohibit the use of recording devices at public sessions. Recording at a public meeting is not a violation of RSA 570-A:2.

Best practice when recording police in public: record openly, avoid interfering with police duties, and maintain a safe distance. Officers performing public duties in public spaces generally lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in their official conduct, though the precise scope under NH state constitutional law (Part I, Art. 19 of the NH Constitution) is less settled than under federal First Amendment doctrine.

For a full treatment, see New Hampshire Laws on Recording Police.

Special topics in New Hampshire

Workplace recording and NLRB

New Hampshire has no separate employer monitoring statute. RSA 570-A:2 applies fully to workplace recordings, so employers and employees alike must obtain all-party consent. Under Stericycle, Inc. and Teamsters Local 628, 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023), employer no-recording policies are presumptively unlawful if they tend to chill employees' Section 7 rights under the NLRA, unless the employer demonstrates a legitimate and substantial business justification. NLRB GC Memo 25-07 (June 25, 2025) additionally treats surreptitious recording of collective bargaining sessions as a per se bad-faith bargaining violation (GC Memo 25-07 is prosecutorial guidance, not a binding Board decision). See New Hampshire Workplace Recording Laws.

Healthcare and HIPAA

Any audio recording of a patient communication that captures protected health information is subject to HIPAA authorization under 45 CFR § 164.508, on top of the RSA 570-A misdemeanor framework. Satisfying state recording law does not substitute for HIPAA patient authorization. See New Hampshire Medical Recording Laws.

School recording and FERPA

Audio and video recordings of students that are maintained by a school qualify as FERPA education records when directly related to an identified student (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99). Schools may not disclose such recordings without written consent except under enumerated exceptions. FERPA does not create a recording-consent right displacing RSA 570-A. See New Hampshire School Recording Laws.

AI voice calls and TCPA

FCC 24-17 (Feb. 8, 2024) declared AI-generated voice cloning an "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the TCPA (47 U.S.C. § 227), requiring prior express consent before such calls are made. The FCC's 2023 one-to-one consent rule was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit in Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, 127 F.4th 303 (2025), and the FCC reinstated the pre-2023 common-law consent standard via DA 25-621. New Hampshire falls within the First Circuit, so the Eleventh Circuit ruling is not directly binding on NH federal courts, but the FCC's DA 25-621 makes the one-to-one requirement non-operative nationally.

Interstate calls and the Hersom jurisdictional rule

For any recording with one party in New Hampshire and one party elsewhere, the location of the recording device is the critical factor under State v. Hersom (2025). The State must prove the recording was made in New Hampshire for RSA 570-A to apply. If the device is outside NH, the stricter all-party consent rule may not govern.

a delivery driver in a uniform standing at a front door step holding a small cardboard package, captured from a low door

Recent legal developments

Nov. 13, 2024: State v. Clark, 2024 N.H. 64, holds that suppression under RSA 570-A:6 applies only to felony violations; misdemeanor participant recordings are not subject to automatic suppression.
Jan. 24, 2025: State v. Hersom (No. 2023-0352) affirms that the State bears the burden of proving both NH jurisdiction and willful mental state before the suppression framework applies.
Jan. 1, 2025: RSA 644:9-a expanded to cover synthetic and AI-generated intimate images (2024, 127:1, 2).
Feb. 3, 2026: HB 1508, which would have repealed all-party consent and allowed secret recording, killed by House Judiciary Committee (ITL, 18-0). NH's all-party consent rule remains unchanged.
2026 session (pending): LSR 1242 would add a statutory exemption for recording public officials on duty in public. As of June 2026, final bill number and status have not been confirmed. Verify at gc.nh.gov.

New Hampshire recording laws in depth

By type of recording:

By place or relationship:

More New Hampshire laws

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Recording laws change and apply differently to each situation. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed New Hampshire attorney.

More New Hampshire Laws

Sources and References

N.H. RSA 570-A:2, I(gc.nh.gov).gov
N.H. RSA 570-A:2, I; 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)(gc.nh.gov).gov
N.H. RSA 570-A:1(gc.nh.gov).gov
N.H. RSA 570-A:2, I-a(gc.nh.gov).gov
State v. Clark, 2024 N.H. 64, No. 2023-0451 (N.H. Nov. 13, 2024)(courts.nh.gov).gov
State v. Hersom, No. 2023-0352 (N.H. Jan. 24, 2025)(courts.nh.gov).gov
N.H. RSA 570-A:11(gc.nh.gov).gov
Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011)(media.ca1.uscourts.gov).gov
Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011); N.H. Const. pt. I, art. 19(media.ca1.uscourts.gov).gov
Hamberger v. Eastman, 106 N.H. 107 (1964)
N.H. HB 1508, 2026 Reg. Sess.; NHPR reporting Jan. 14, 2026(nhpr.org)
LSR 1242, N.H. General Court(gc.nh.gov).gov
N.H. RSA 570-A:1 (definition of oral communication); N.H. RSA 570-A:2(gc.nh.gov).gov
FCC, In the Matter of Implications of Artificial Intelligence Technologies on Protecting Consumers from Unwanted Robocalls and Robotexts, FCC 24-17 (released Feb. 8, 2024)(docs.fcc.gov).gov
Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, 127 F.4th 303 (11th Cir. 2025); FCC DA 25-621 (ministerial order reinstating prior rule, mandate issued Apr. 30, 2025); 47 CFR § 64.1200(f)(9)(docs.fcc.gov).gov
47 CFR § 64.501 (historical text); Federal Register, Modernizing Common Carrier Rules, 82 Fed. Reg. 48960 (Oct. 20, 2017)(federalregister.gov).gov
DOJ Justice Manual § 9-7.302; A.G. Memorandum of May 30, 2002(justice.gov).gov
Stericycle, Inc. and Teamsters Local 628, 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023)(nlrb.gov).gov
NLRB GC Memo 25-07 (June 25, 2025)(nlrb.gov).gov
CFPB, Regulation F, 12 CFR § 1006.100(b) -- Record Retention (Telephone Calls)(consumerfinance.gov).gov
HHS OCR, Guidance on HIPAA Rules and Audio-Only Telehealth (2022); 45 CFR §§ 164.508, 164.530(hhs.gov).gov
FERPA, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR §§ 99.3, 99.30; USDOE Student Privacy Policy Office, FAQs on Photos and Videos under FERPA(studentprivacy.ed.gov).gov
gc.nh.gov.gov
gc.nh.gov.gov
gc.nh.gov.gov
gc.nh.gov.gov