Is it cheaper to live in NH or mass?

New Hampshire is meaningfully cheaper than Massachusetts. NH sits at around $3,125 per person per month for a moderate lifestyle, Massachusetts at $3,575, a gap of about $450 a month, or roughly $5,400 a year per person. Housing is a smaller part of that gap than the headline totals suggest: NH moderate housing averages $1,453 against Massachusetts’s $1,715. The wider difference shows up across the rest of the basket. Southern NH (Nashua, Manchester, the Salem area) inherits some of the Boston-metro pricing pressure, so the gap narrows there, but anywhere north or west of the Lakes Region runs materially cheaper. NH has no broad-based income tax or sales tax, which compounds the advantage for higher earners. Property taxes run higher in NH to compensate. For the full breakdown, see our New Hampshire cost of living page.