This One Underrated State In New England Is Considered The Best Place To Retire In 2025

Where do you see yourself living out the autumn of your years? Are you hiking through Jurassic Park-like landscapes and catching the Waikiki surf? Well, these are experiences you can only have in Oahu, Hawaii. Or maybe you want to find inner peace in a Zen retirement community in Northern California's wine country. Both sound appealing in their own right, but if you want to base your decision purely on retirement practicalities, then New Hampshire might be the best state of all.

According to the consumer financial services company Bankrate's "Best and Worst States to Retire in 2025" study, New Hampshire is the year's best state for retirees. It's a place where the neighborhoods are safe, the tax rates are fair, the healthcare is great, and there is a robust elderly population. And its existence offers a compelling case against the belief that a retirement must be spent in sunny climes.

2025 was a good year for New England overall, whose resplendent fall colors and low-key lifestyles weren't the only things that contributed to its high rankings. Maine came in second on the list, thanks to a high number of senior residents and low violent crime rates, while Vermont ranked fourth for its abundance of art venues and best-in-class healthcare. In sixth place, Rhode Island also made it into the top 10, scoring well in most categories except weather and local taxes. At the other end, Louisiana came in dead last, where high crime rates and frequent hurricanes pose risks to the elderly, and affordability and healthcare are comparatively poor.

Bankrate based its rankings on 15 data points collected for all 50 states. This included data from sources such as the U.S. Census, the Council for Community and Economic Research, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Bankrate then organized these points into eight broad categories — local taxes, affordability, weather, safety, healthcare, people of similar age, arts and entertainment, and miscellaneous/other — each of which was weighted according to what the public considered to be most important when considering where to retire. This meant that a higher affordability score was much more valuable than, say, the people of similar age or the miscellaneous/other categories.

New Hampshire is synonymous with autumn, whether you're winding along the Kancamagus Highway in October or whiling away the afternoons in a town like Sandwich, where charming forest trails and art galleries converge. But in winter, it's unbearably cold, and throughout the year, there's little sunshine. So it's unsurprising that it was the No. 40 state in terms of weather, the second most important category. 

But it made up ground elsewhere with the safest neighborhoods in the country, the fifth-best healthcare system, the sixth-most competitive local taxes, and a ranking of seventh in the category that evaluates how many other retirees are likely to be in the area. New Hampshire also scored highly for its arts and entertainment venues. In practice, this means New Hampshire retirees can expect clean and friendly neighborhoods and a strong sense of community with good entertainment opportunities, all while not having to worry about the government eating into their Social Security dollars.