If your New Hampshire business brings in between $300,000 and $400,000 a year, the return you file for 2026 may be your last Business Enterprise Tax return ever. On July 10, 2026, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 155, which raises the BET filing threshold to $400,000 starting January 1, 2027 — a change Republican leaders expect will remove roughly 4,000 small businesses from the tax rolls entirely.
The bill does more than lift the threshold. It also installs an automatic trigger that ratchets the BET rate down whenever state business-tax collections run hot, with no future vote required. Here is what each piece does, how to tell whether your filing obligation disappears, and what to do before the new rules take effect.
What HB 155 Actually Does: Three Changes in One Bill
HB 155, enacted as Chapter 280 of the 2026 session laws, has three operative parts:
1. The filing threshold jumps to $400,000. Businesses must currently file a BET return once their gross receipts or enterprise value tax base exceeds about $297,000 under the inflation-adjusted threshold. Starting with tax years beginning January 1, 2027, that line moves to $400,000 for both measures. Biennial inflation adjustments to the threshold resume for tax years beginning January 1, 2029.
2. The rate can now fall on autopilot. Whenever certified business-tax collections exceed the state's official revenue plan by a full $100 million, the BET rate — currently 0.55% — automatically drops by 0.05 percentage points. The cuts repeat each time the condition is met, down to a floor of 0.25%, the rate in effect when the tax was created in 1993. Reaching the floor would cut the rate by more than half, in six steps.
3. Nursing homes get $2.5 million. The bill appropriates $2.5 million for the biennium ending June 30, 2027, to support per-diem Medicaid rates at licensed nursing facilities. That money was the bipartisan sweetener: it initially drew Democratic support that evaporated once the automatic rate trigger was added.
The nursing-home funding took effect June 30, 2026. Everything else — the threshold and the trigger — takes effect January 1, 2027.
A Quick Refresher: How the BET Works and Why It Stings Small Firms
New Hampshire has no tax on wage income and no general sales tax, but it funds a large share of state government through two business taxes: the Business Profits Tax (BPT), levied on net profits, and the Business Enterprise Tax, levied on what a business pays out rather than what it keeps.
The BET base is the sum of all compensation paid or accrued, interest paid or accrued, and dividends paid — the "enterprise value tax base" — taxed at a flat 0.55% for recent tax years. That structure is what makes the BET painful for small operations: a landscaping company, a small restaurant, or a two-chair salon can owe BET in a year it turns no profit at all, because payroll alone can push it over the line. The tax you pay under the BET can be credited against your BPT liability, so the two taxes overlap rather than stack for most profitable businesses — but a business with no BPT liability still pays BET in full.
The rate has already been cut repeatedly over the past decade, each time over objections that the state was trading long-term revenue for short-term wins. HB 155 writes the next round of cuts into statute as an automatic formula instead of a future debate.
The Automatic Trigger, Explained
The trigger is the part of HB 155 with the longest tail, so it is worth understanding precisely. Each year, no later than December 31, the legislative budget assistant certifies three numbers from the audited financial statements: combined BPT-plus-BET revenue collected, the combined official revenue plan, and the surplus, if any. For each full $100 million of certified surplus, the BET rate falls 0.05 points, effective for taxable periods beginning January 1 of the year after the certification year.
Three guardrails can suspend a cut:
- Reserves must be full. No reduction takes effect if the state's revenue stabilization reserve (the Rainy Day Fund) is below its statutory cap at fiscal year-end.
- Overall revenue must be on plan. No cut if combined general fund and education trust fund revenue came in below the official plan.
- Business taxes must not be shrinking. No cut if combined business-tax revenue fell compared with the prior fiscal year.
If any guardrail trips, the certified surplus carries forward and applies in the next year when all three conditions clear. Within 60 days of each certification, the Department of Revenue Administration must publish notice of any rate change and issue updated forms and guidance — so in practice, you will learn the next year's rate from the DRA each winter, not by doing the math yourself.
Supporters frame this as fiscal discipline: taxpayers get relief only when the state demonstrably collects more than planned and only with full reserves. Critics see a slow-motion revenue drain that future legislatures must live with no matter what budget pressures emerge — House Democrats argued the package effectively downshifts costs toward local property taxpayers over time.
Are You One of the Roughly 4,000? How to Tell
The threshold exemption is all-or-nothing: if neither your gross receipts nor your enterprise value tax base exceeds $400,000 for a tax year beginning on or after January 1, 2027, you stop filing and paying the BET altogether — no return, no estimates, no compliance cost. Republican leaders estimate about 4,000 businesses fall in the band between the old threshold and the new one.
Run both tests, because either one can keep you in the system:
| Test | What to measure | 2027 line |
|---|---|---|
| Gross receipts | Total business receipts from all activities | $400,000 |
| Enterprise value tax base | Compensation + interest + dividends paid or accrued | $400,000 |
A service business with $350,000 in revenue but $410,000 in officer compensation plus interest — unusual, but possible in a loss year funded by borrowing — still files. More commonly, a business with modest receipts but a large payroll stays in through the second test. Check both before you celebrate.
Three cautions before you stop filing:
Your 2026 return is unaffected. The new threshold applies to tax years beginning January 1, 2027. If you owe BET for 2026 under the current threshold, you still file and pay it on the normal schedule.
The BPT is untouched. HB 155 changes nothing about the Business Profits Tax, which has its own much lower filing threshold. Plenty of businesses that escape the BET will still owe BPT returns. Confirm with your preparer which obligations actually disappear.
Growth can pull you back in. A business hovering near $400,000 in receipts should keep BET-ready books even in an exempt year. Landing one large contract mid-year can push you over the line with estimated-payment obligations you did not plan for.
What to Do Before January 1, 2027
If your business sits near the threshold, use the months before the effective date productively:
- Model both 2026 and 2027. Have your preparer run your expected 2026 BET liability under the current threshold alongside a 2027 projection under the new one. If 2027 shows no filing obligation, you can stop 2027 BET estimates — but do not stop 2026 estimates early.
- Separate the two tax bases in your books. Gross receipts and the enterprise value base (compensation, interest, dividends) are different numbers drawn from different accounts. If your chart of accounts mingles owner draws with wages, or buries interest in general expenses, clean that up now so the exemption test is a report, not a research project.
- Mind the fiscal-year timing. The threshold change keys off tax years beginning January 1, 2027. Calendar-year filers get a clean switchover; fiscal-year filers should confirm with the DRA or their preparer which return first uses the $400,000 line.
- Watch each December for trigger news. The certification deadline means rate news arrives late each year. If a cut is certified, it changes the rate for taxable periods beginning the following January 1 — relevant to your estimates even if you are well above the threshold.
- Do not confuse "exempt from BET" with "exempt from everything." BET, BPT, rooms-and-meals tax, and federal obligations each have their own thresholds and calendars. Dropping one return from the stack is a win; dropping the wrong one is a penalty notice.
Tracking the Threshold Takes Clean Books
The practical lesson of HB 155 is that a single number in your books — gross receipts on one side, compensation-plus-interest-plus-dividends on the other — now determines whether you file a state tax return at all. Businesses that track those figures in real time will know their status in January; businesses that reconstruct them at tax time will pay a preparer to find out.
That is a bookkeeping problem before it is a tax problem. Keeping compensation, interest, dividends, and gross receipts in distinct, reconcilable accounts all year turns every threshold question — this one, the BPT line, the next one Concord dreams up — into a five-minute report instead of a February scramble.
Simplify Your Financial Management
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