New Hampshire passes a §25F implementing statute, putting its scholarship-credit machinery on Gov. Ayotte's desk

New Hampshire already told the federal government it was in. In January 2026, Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced the state would participate in the federal Education Tax Credit for scholarship granting organizations created under §25F of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and New Hampshire appears on the IRS advance-election roster. What it did not yet have was a statute spelling out who, inside state government, actually runs the program. In June 2026 the legislature supplied one: both chambers gave final approval to House Bill 1774 and sent it to Gov. Ayotte's desk, where it awaits her signature.

The bill divides the operational labor between two agencies. It directs the Department of Revenue Administration, “to the extent possible,” to participate in the federal income tax credit for individual contributions to qualified scholarship granting organizations beginning in tax years ending after December 31, 2026, and to renew that participation automatically each year. It then tasks the Department of Education with creating New Hampshire's list of qualifying scholarship granting organizations (SGOs), submitting that list to the U.S. Treasury, publishing it on the state website, and certifying to the legislature that it has done so. Notably, the version that passed bars the agencies from adopting implementing rules, keeping the framework in statute rather than delegating it to a rulemaking process. The §25F language is bundled inside a broader bill that also addresses federal Workforce Pell grants, so the scholarship-credit provisions are one component of HB 1774 rather than its entire subject.

The practical significance is the shift from an executive decision to a statutory one. Ayotte's January announcement was an advance election, the act of putting New Hampshire on the federal roster; a future governor could, in principle, reverse course on an executive opt-in. HB 1774 instead writes the participation duty and the automatic annual renewal into law and names the offices responsible for the SGO list, the donor-facing roster, and the reporting back to the legislature. It is the difference between saying yes and building the apparatus that makes the yes operate. With the federal credit going live January 1, 2027, that apparatus, especially the qualifying-SGO list, is the part that has to exist before any New Hampshire donor can claim the credit or any family can receive a scholarship.

That list is also the gate every New Hampshire scholarship organization will have to clear. Once the Department of Education builds and submits it, only organizations on it can receive §25F-eligible contributions, so the months between now and the 2027 launch are the window in which existing nonprofits get qualified and new ones stand up. Children's Scholarship Fund New Hampshire is the most visible in-state candidate, but the program is open to any qualifying organization. Operators weighing whether to launch or expand one can review how the program works in our explainers and see the current national field in the SGO directory; the intake, eligibility-verification, and disbursement work behind a compliant program can run on software built specifically for §25F. New Hampshire's status, and what families need to know locally, is tracked on our New Hampshire state page.

What remains is Ayotte's signature. As the Republican governor who announced the opt-in in the first place, she is the official the bill empowers rather than constrains, and her decision is the last step before the implementing framework becomes law. New Hampshire is one of the more than two dozen states on the federal roster heading into the January 1, 2027 launch, and HB 1774 moves it from a state that has elected in to one with the statutory machinery to run a §25F program. The next milestone after a signature is the Department of Education's submission of the qualifying-SGO list to Treasury. The full national picture is mapped on our state participation map.