New Hampshire Living Will Requirements
If you complete New Hampshire's Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care alongside your Living Will and the two ever point in different directions, state law resolves the conflict in favor of your named agent, not your written Living Will instructions (RSA 137-J:21).
Introduction
If you complete New Hampshire's Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care alongside your Living Will and the two ever point in different directions, state law resolves the conflict in favor of your named agent, not your written Living Will instructions (RSA 137-J:21). A Living Will is your own written statement of the medical treatment you want or want withheld once you can no longer speak for yourself, addressed directly to your providers rather than filtered through someone else's judgment, so that override rule is worth understanding before you rely on the document alone. New Hampshire folds this declaration into one combined document, the New Hampshire Advance Directive (RSA 137-J:20), where Part II is titled 'Living Will,' a genuine statutory term here rather than an informal nickname, and Part I is the agent-designation half. This guide covers Part II: the two dual-certified conditions that activate it, how the state's 'excessively burdensome' standard works, execution, and the pregnancy limitation. Naming or limiting an agent is a separate task the New Hampshire Healthcare Power of Attorney page covers on its own.
Key Things to Know
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New Hampshire requires two attending physicians, or one physician plus another qualifying attending practitioner, to certify you have lost capacity and are either permanently unconscious or facing an advanced, incurable, progressive condition before your Living Will's treatment choice takes effect. Once active, it is your own written declaration of care you want or refuse, addressed to your providers rather than routed through a decision maker.
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A Living Will is not a Last Will and Testament. A Living Will governs medical care while you are alive but unable to communicate; a Last Will and Testament governs who inherits your property after you die.
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New Hampshire does not have a stand-alone Living Will document. RSA 137-J:20 folds it into Part II of one combined New Hampshire Advance Directive, alongside a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care in Part I.
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If you also name an agent under Part I and the agent's contemporaneous decision ever conflicts with your Living Will's written instructions, New Hampshire law gives the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care the final say, not the Living Will (RSA 137-J:21). Sign Part II alone, with no Part I, and there is no agent decision for your written wishes to compete with.
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Artificial nutrition and hydration is included automatically in whichever general treatment choice you initial. New Hampshire does not require it to be addressed as its own, separately initialed election.
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New Hampshire restricts withholding or withdrawing life sustaining treatment from a pregnant principal unless an obstetrician and your attending practitioner certify specific medical exceptions apply.
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New Hampshire has no state advance directive registry. Give copies to your agent, your medical providers, and your lawyer instead of relying on a central lookup system.
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Before you sign, New Hampshire requires that you first be given a statutory disclosure statement (RSA 137-J:19) that walks through this declaration's own limits in plain language too, including the pregnancy exception to your treatment choice, not only the agent-authority language it also covers.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Living Will in New Hampshire, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Living Will guide walks through them.
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New Hampshire Requirements for Living Will
New Hampshire does not have a stand-alone Living Will statute. RSA 137-J:20 sets out one combined New Hampshire Advance Directive form, with Part II titled 'Living Will,' a genuine defined term under RSA 137-J:2, expressing your wishes about life sustaining treatment once two attending physicians certify you have lost capacity and are permanently unconscious or facing an advanced, incurable, progressive condition.
New Hampshire's statute does not use the phrase 'terminal condition.' Its Living Will activates when two attending physicians certify you have lost capacity and are either permanently unconscious or suffer from an advanced, life limiting, incurable and progressive condition for which treatment has become excessively burdensome or ineffective (RSA 137-J:2). Your written Living Will states whether life sustaining treatment should continue or stop under that standard.
One of New Hampshire's two qualifying conditions is being permanently unconscious, defined as a lasting condition, indefinitely without improvement, in which awareness and other indicators of consciousness are absent, confirmed by neurological assessment (RSA 137-J:2). Whichever general treatment choice you initial on the statutory form covers this condition automatically; there is no separate instruction specific to permanent unconsciousness.
If you decline excessively burdensome life sustaining treatment, New Hampshire's statutory form has you state that you want comfort care only, understanding that stopping or starting treatment to achieve that comfort, including stopping medically administered nutrition and hydration, may allow you to die sooner. Ordinary pain relief and comfort measures are excluded from the definition of life sustaining treatment altogether (RSA 137-J:2), so choosing comfort care never means giving up pain management.
New Hampshire does not require artificial nutrition and hydration to be addressed as its own separate initialed choice. It is defined as one form of life sustaining treatment among others (RSA 137-J:2) and is covered automatically by whichever general Part II choice you initial. Your agent, however, can never stop you from eating or drinking by natural means, regardless of your Living Will or any authority you give your agent (RSA 137-J:19).
Both witnesses, not just one, must be adults who, at the time of signing, are not your agent or surrogate, your spouse or heir at law, a person who could inherit any part of your estate, your attending practitioner, or someone acting under that practitioner's direction. Up to one, but not both, of your two witnesses may be your health or residential care provider or its employee.
Notarization is not a mere enhancement; it is one of two independently sufficient ways to execute a valid New Hampshire Advance Directive. You may sign before either two qualifying witnesses, or a notary public, or a justice of the peace, and all three routes carry equal legal weight under RSA 137-J:14.
You may revoke your Advance Directive, including its Living Will component, through a signed and dated written revocation delivered to your agent, surrogate, or care provider; through oral revocation in front of two witnesses who meet the same qualification standard as execution witnesses; or through any other act clearly showing intent to revoke, such as burning, tearing, or destroying the document. Executing a later Advance Directive also revokes the earlier one.
New Hampshire law does not let a Living Will, an agent, or a surrogate authorize withholding or withdrawing life sustaining treatment from a pregnant principal, unless an obstetrician who examined you and your attending practitioner certify, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the treatment will not permit the fetus to continue developing to a live birth, will physically harm you, or will prolong severe pain that medication cannot relieve (RSA 137-J:5 and RSA 137-J:10).
New Hampshire's own Advance Directive form (RSA 137-J:20) does not include an organ donation section. Organ and tissue donation wishes are handled separately under the state's Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (RSA 291-A), typically through a driver's license designation, a donor card, your will, or the state donor registry, not through your Living Will itself.
Federal HIPAA regulations govern how your health care agent can be authorized to access your protected health information once the agent-designation portion of your combined Advance Directive is in effect. This authorization supports the agent-decision-maker half of your directive; it does not change or expand your own Living Will instructions.
New Hampshire's statutory Advance Directive form has no dedicated religious preferences section. The real basis for religious or moral beliefs sits elsewhere in the chapter: your agent or surrogate must make decisions based on your known wishes and religious or moral beliefs (RSA 137-J:6), and if you have no attending practitioner for religious or moral reasons, your directive may name someone else to certify your lack of capacity (RSA 137-J:5).
New Hampshire's recognition of an out-of-state Living Will, Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, DNR, or POLST comes from its own reciprocity statute, not the U.S. Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause. A document validly executed under another state's law is just as effective in New Hampshire as one executed here, provided it does not violate this chapter (RSA 137-J:17).
Federal law requires Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their right under New Hampshire law to make an advance directive, including stating their own treatment wishes in a Living Will.
Your Living Will's general life sustaining treatment choice does not by itself function as a CPR or Do Not Resuscitate decision. New Hampshire handles CPR through a separate Do Not Resuscitate and POLST process (RSA 137-J:24 through RSA 137-J:33), and the state's own mandatory disclosure statement tells you your Advance Directive is not, in and of itself, a medical order such as a DNR (RSA 137-J:19).
Mechanical ventilation falls within New Hampshire's single definition of life sustaining treatment (RSA 137-J:2) rather than getting its own initialed line. Whichever general Part II choice you make on the statutory form governs ventilation along with every other listed treatment together.
Kidney dialysis is named as one example within New Hampshire's single life sustaining treatment definition (RSA 137-J:2). Like mechanical ventilation, it is covered automatically by your general Part II choice, not addressed through its own separate directive line on the statutory form.
New Hampshire's life sustaining treatment definition says treatment may include drugs to maintain blood pressure, blood transfusions, and antibiotics (RSA 137-J:2), a non-exhaustive list rather than a separate directive for each medication category. Your one general Part II choice governs all of them together.
New Hampshire's statutory form lets you state you want comfort care only if you decline excessively burdensome life sustaining treatment, understanding that stopping or starting treatment for comfort, including stopping medically administered nutrition and hydration, may allow you to die sooner. Ordinary comfort and pain relief measures are excluded from the definition of life sustaining treatment, so they remain available no matter which Part II choice you make (RSA 137-J:2 and RSA 137-J:20).
If you complete both parts of your New Hampshire Advance Directive and your named agent's decision ever conflicts with your Living Will's written instructions, New Hampshire law says the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care controls.
New Hampshire requires every person executing an Advance Directive to first receive a statutory disclosure statement, substantially in the form set out at RSA 137-J:19, explaining agent authority, its limits, the pregnancy exception, and witness rules in plain language. The executed Advance Directive itself must also be substantially in the RSA 137-J:20 statutory form, a firmer expectation than in states where the form is purely optional.
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Check my Living WillFrequently Asked Questions
In New Hampshire, a Living Will is Part II of the combined New Hampshire Advance Directive set out at RSA 137-J:20. It lets you state, once two attending physicians certify you have lost capacity and are permanently unconscious or facing an advanced, incurable, progressive condition, whether life sustaining treatment should continue or stop. Unlike many combined-form states, New Hampshire's own statute genuinely defines and uses the phrase 'Living Will' (RSA 137-J:2); it is not just an informal nickname here.
In New Hampshire, a Living Will and a Health Care Power of Attorney are two halves of one combined document, not separate filings. The Living Will half states your own treatment wishes directly; the Health Care Power of Attorney half names someone else to decide for you when you can't. See New Hampshire Healthcare Power of Attorney for that half.
They control entirely different things at entirely different times. A Living Will, part of your New Hampshire Advance Directive, states your medical treatment wishes while you are alive but unable to communicate. A Last Will and Testament says who inherits your property after you die, and only takes effect at death. Most people preparing one eventually want the other too; see New Hampshire Last Will and Testament for that separate document.
Yes, unless you also complete Part I and the two ever conflict. Your Living Will applies on its own once the certification conditions are met, addressed directly to your providers, with no agent needed. But if you also name an agent and that agent's contemporaneous decision differs from what you wrote, RSA 137-J:21 gives the agent's decision priority over your Living Will's text. Sign Part II alone, with no Part I, and this override question never arises.
Yes. New Hampshire's definition of 'Living Will' requires certification in your medical record by two attending physicians, or a physician plus another qualifying attending practitioner who is not supervised by the certifying physician, that you have lost capacity and are permanently unconscious or facing an advanced, life limiting, incurable and progressive condition (RSA 137-J:2). A single physician's opinion is not enough on its own.
No. Whichever general treatment choice you initial on New Hampshire's statutory form already covers artificial nutrition and hydration along with every other form of life sustaining treatment, since it is defined as one example within that single category (RSA 137-J:2). There is no separate line to initial for nutrition and hydration on its own.
It can. New Hampshire law does not let a Living Will, an agent, or a surrogate authorize withholding or withdrawing life sustaining treatment from a pregnant principal unless an obstetrician who examined you and your attending practitioner certify specific conditions, including that the treatment will not permit a live birth, will physically harm you, or will prolong severe pain medication cannot relieve (RSA 137-J:10).
No. New Hampshire does not operate a state advance directive registry the way some other states do. Keep the signed original with your own records and give copies to your agent, your health care providers, and your lawyer so it can be found when needed.