Will.com / Wills / New Hampshire
Make your own New Hampshire will.
Yours in about 20 minutes. Legally valid in New Hampshire. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Is a self-written will legal in New Hampshire?
Yes. New Hampshire recognizes wills you write yourself, as long as they meet the state's signing requirements. The governing statute is N.H. Rev. Stat. §551:1 et seq..
Your will needs to be in writing, signed by you, and witnessed by 2 adults. You don't need a notary for the will itself to be valid, but adding a notarized "self-proving" affidavit makes the probate process faster later (this tool generates that for you automatically).
You must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Witnesses cannot be people who inherit under your will (or in some states, the spouse of a person who inherits). This tool walks you through the rules so you don't trip over them.
A will you write yourself has the same legal force as one drafted by an attorney, provided you follow the signing rules. Courts admit self-written wills to probate every day. An attorney's value is in advising on complex estates, not in drafting the document itself.
What it costs to make a will in New Hampshire
A New Hampshire estate-planning attorney typically charges $300 to $600 for a simple will, and $1,000 to $1,500 for a will-plus-revocable-trust package. Rates run higher in dense metros and lower in rural areas. Most attorneys bill at $250 to $400 per hour and need one or two meetings to draft a basic will.
You can also write a will entirely from scratch with a sheet of paper and a pen, with no software at all. New Hampshire requires the same 2-witness signing process regardless of who drafts the document. The risk with a from-scratch will is technical: a missing self-proving affidavit, a witness who's also a beneficiary, or wording that creates ambiguity for the probate court. That's what this tool prevents.
Will.com is free at the document level. The $29/year subscription adds cloud-stored, zero-knowledge-encrypted access so you can edit and update your plan as life changes.
New Hampshire will requirements at a glance
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About you, your family, and what you own.
- 2
Download your will
A complete, personalized document, formatted for New Hampshire courts.
- 3
Sign with witnesses
Print and sign in front of 2 adult witnesses. Keep the signed copy somewhere safe.
When you might want an attorney instead
An online will works for most people. It's the right tool when your situation is straightforward: you want to leave your assets to family or friends, you don't have complex tax issues, and you're not anticipating a fight over your estate.
Consider hiring an attorney if any of these apply:
- Your estate is large enough to trigger federal estate tax (over $13.99 million in 2025) or New Hampshire estate or inheritance tax.
- You own a business, complex investments, or assets in multiple states or countries.
- You're in a blended family, especially if you want to leave assets to a current spouse while protecting children from a prior relationship.
- You have a child or beneficiary with special needs and want a supplemental-needs trust that won't disqualify them from public benefits.
- You expect someone to contest the will, or you're disinheriting a close family member.
- You have substantial retirement accounts and want sophisticated beneficiary planning.
If none of these apply, an online will is genuinely fine. The legal validity of your will doesn't depend on who drafted it, only on whether New Hampshire's signing rules were followed.
Self-proving affidavit in New Hampshire
New Hampshire recognizes self-proving affidavits, a notarized statement attached to the will in which the witnesses swear to the signing in front of a notary.
A self-proven will skips the requirement to track down witnesses years later for the probate court. It's optional, but adding the affidavit at signing time saves your executor work. Will.com generates the affidavit alongside the will.
Who can witness your will in New Hampshire
RSA 551:3: a beneficial devise or legacy to a subscribing witness, or to the spouse of a subscribing witness, is void unless there are 2 other disinterested subscribing witnesses. The interested witness remains competent to attest the will (the disqualification reaches only the gift, not the witness's testimony).
Family changes after you sign
A child born or adopted after the will. A child who arrives after you sign, and who isn't named or accounted for in the will, is covered by New Hampshire law rather than by your wishes. The safest practice is to update your will when your family changes.
RSA 551:10 (repealed and reenacted by 2022, 261:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2023): defines 'Estate' and 'Devise' for purposes of this section and protects children born or adopted after the will was executed whom the testator failed to provide for. If the testator had no child living when the will was executed, the omitted child takes a share equal in value to what the child would have received had the testator died intestate, unless the will devised all or substantially all of the estate to the omitted child's other parent and that parent survives the testator and is entitled to take under the will. If the testator had one or more children living when the will was executed and the will devised property to one or more of them, the omitted child instead shares only in those devises, taking the equal share the child would have received had all omitted after-born and after-adopted children been included among the children to whom devises were made, with the then-living children's devises abating ratably. Neither rule applies if it appears from the will that the omission was intentional. A living child for whom the testator failed to provide at the time the will was executed, solely because the testator believed the child to be dead, shares as if the child were an omitted after-born or after-adopted child. Former companion section RSA 551:11 was repealed by 2022, 261:2 on the same effective date.
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