Nashua apartment operating costs are dominated by the city property tax, which at the 2025 rate of $16.83 per $1,000 of assessed value is typically one of the largest expense lines, followed by owner-paid utilities that are all moving up at once: a pending 21.34% water rate request from Pennichuck Water Works, proposed 7% annual sewer increases for 2027 through 2029, and an Eversource default electricity rate that rose to about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour in August 2026. Owners budgeting for 2027 should expect most of these lines to be higher than they were a year ago.
Nashua, a city of 91,322 at the 2020 Census in Hillsborough County, has a substantial rental market. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts for Nashua puts the owner-occupied rate at 55.8% for 2020–2024, meaning about 44% of occupied homes are rented, and the median gross rent at $1,737. Below, each major cost line is broken out with the current rate, how it is set, and what is changing. Where a figure is still a proposal rather than an approved rate, it is labeled that way, because several of the largest changes were pending as of October 2026.
Nashua property tax and how it is billed
The 2025 rate and its components
Nashua’s 2025 tax rate is $16.83 per $1,000 of assessed value. The city’s tax rate history breaks it into four parts:
- City: $7.19
- Local school: $7.48
- State education: $1.01
- County: $1.15
The rate rose $0.93, or 5.83%, from 2024, while total property values in the city grew only about $100 million, less than 1%, according to the Nashua Telegraph. With little growth in the tax base, a larger budget translated almost directly into a higher rate.
Recent history and revaluations
The rate has moved sharply over the last four years, mainly because of revaluations:
- 2022: $18.07, with an assessment ratio of 93.4% (a revaluation update year)
- 2023: $18.23, ratio 85.9%
- 2024: $15.90, ratio 95.3% (a revaluation update year)
- 2025: $16.83, ratio 90.4%
The 2024 statistical revaluation raised Nashua’s total assessed value from $13.9 billion to $16.5 billion, an 18.7% increase, and the rate fell from $18.23 to $15.90 as a result. A falling rate after a revaluation does not mean lower taxes for every property. Buildings whose assessed value rose faster than the citywide 18.7% saw bills go up, and those that rose more slowly saw bills fall. Apartment owners should compare their own building’s assessment change with that benchmark.
Reading the ratio
The ratio column measures how close assessments are to market value. At 90.4% in 2025, assessments sat about 10% below market on average, so the effective tax rate on market value was closer to $15.21 per $1,000 ($16.83 × 0.904). That effective rate is the more useful number when comparing Nashua with other cities or underwriting a purchase price.
A worked example
Consider a hypothetical 20-unit building assessed at $2,500,000. At $16.83 per $1,000, the annual tax is about $42,075, or roughly $2,104 per unit, about $175 per unit per month. Against the city’s median gross rent of $1,737, that is around 10% of a median rent, before any utilities, insurance or maintenance.
Billing, interest and abatements
Nashua bills semiannually on a tax year that runs April 1 to March 31. According to the city’s explanation of its July and December tax bills, the July bill is an estimate equal to half the prior year’s rate and is due the first business day of July. The December bill, which reflects the newly set rate, is due 30 days after its postmark, generally no later than December 20. For 2025, bills were mailed November 14 and due December 15. Late payments accrue 8% interest from the day after the due date.
Owners who believe an assessment is too high must apply for an abatement in writing by March 1 under RSA 76:16, following the date of notice of the tax, and not afterwards. Because the December bill is the first to reflect a new assessment and rate, that leaves a window of roughly two and a half months to file.
Water: Pennichuck’s pending rate case
Water in Nashua is supplied by Pennichuck Water Works, a regulated utility owned through Pennichuck Corp., whose sole shareholder has been the City of Nashua since January 25, 2012. Pennichuck Water Works serves about 30,000 customers in 11 communities. City ownership does not exempt the utility from state regulation: its rates are set by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission.
Recent increases
Pennichuck’s 2025 annual report to the city summarizes recent changes:
- The commission approved a rate increase on July 27, 2024, in Order 26,862.
- Consolidated tiered rates took effect March 1, 2025, under Order 27,098.
- Capital-project surcharges of 2.06% (March 2025) and 2.49% (September 2025) were approved on top of base rates.
The 2026 request
In docket DW 26-027, Pennichuck Water Works asked for a 21.34% increase, or $11.6 million in additional annual revenue. Under the proposal the average residential bill would rise from $60.02 to $72.83 a month. The commission’s Order 28,233 on Pennichuck’s rate request, issued June 22, 2026, suspended the proposed permanent rates for up to 12 months, to June 22, 2027, while the case proceeds. The company also requested temporary rates at the same 21.34% level effective July 2, 2026, and a hearing on temporary rates was scheduled for July 21, 2026.
For owners of buildings with master-metered water, the takeaway is to budget for a meaningful increase. A 21.34% rise on a building spending $20,000 a year on water would add about $4,270 annually.
Sewer: three planned 7% increases
Wastewater service is billed by the City of Nashua. Ordinance O-26-023, titled “Increasing Sewer Use Fees Rates and Charges,” had its first reading before the Board of Aldermen on August 11, 2026. As reported by Nashua Ink Link in September 2026, it proposes a 7% increase each January in 2027, 2028 and 2029, adding about $3 a month for the average user in the first year.
Compounded, three consecutive 7% increases raise sewer charges by about 22.5% over three years. Because sewer charges are typically based on water consumption, buildings where the owner pays water also pay sewer, so the water and sewer increases stack. An owner budgeting $15,000 a year for sewer today should plan for roughly $18,375 by 2029 if the ordinance is adopted as proposed.
Electricity: default service and community power
Most apartment buildings pay for common-area electricity, and some pay for in-unit power as well. In Nashua, supply is available from two default options plus competitive suppliers.
Eversource default service
Eversource’s default energy service rate is reset twice a year. For August 1, 2026 through January 2027 it is 14.009 cents per kilowatt-hour, approved by the Public Utilities Commission on June 25, 2026, according to Valley News coverage of the new electric rates. That rate includes about 1 cent per kilowatt-hour to recover past under-collections. For comparison, the rate Eversource requested for August 2025 was 11.2 cents, up from 8.9 cents the period before. Supply is only part of the bill; delivery charges are added separately.
Nashua Community Power
Nashua runs a community power program that automatically enrolls customers, who can opt out without penalty. Its default rate for February 1 through July 31, 2026 was 14.663 cents per kilowatt-hour. The Nashua Telegraph reported that this was about 3.3 cents above the roughly 11.3-cent rate Eversource had proposed for the same period, a difference of about $21 a month for a household using 650 kWh. Owners of house-meter accounts should check which supplier each account is on and compare rates each time either option resets, since the gap between them shifts from one period to the next.
Heating: natural gas cost swings
For gas-heated buildings with central boilers, the cost of gas is often the most volatile line. Liberty Utilities (EnergyNorth), the local gas utility, proposed a winter 2025–26 residential cost of gas of $0.9162 per therm in docket DG 25-057, up 50% from $0.6088 the prior winter, citing under-recovery after a cold 2024–25 winter. That was a proposal; the final approved rate may differ. The pattern matters regardless: a cold winter that leaves the utility under-collected tends to show up as a higher cost-of-gas charge the following season, so one hard winter can raise costs for two.
Code compliance and life-safety costs
Some of the costs of operating in Nashua come from codes rather than bills.
Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
Under RSA 153:10-a’s smoke and CO detector requirements, multi-unit dwellings and rental units must have smoke alarms meeting NFPA 72 and carbon monoxide detectors meeting NFPA 720, and the owner must keep both in working condition. CO detectors are not required where there is no attached garage and no fuel-burning appliance. Stricter local rules still apply.
State fire and building codes
New Hampshire’s adopted fire and building codes are the 2021 editions of NFPA 1 and NFPA 101, effective August 13, 2024, and a building code based on the 2021 IBC and IRC, the 2018 IECC and the 2020 National Electrical Code, effective July 1, 2024. Renovations, unit turns that involve electrical work, and changes of use are generally reviewed against these editions.
Local housing standards and inspections
Nashua’s Chapter 182, Housing Standards, adopted in 1990, covers structural, sanitary, mechanical and electrical standards, egress, smoke detection and fire suppression, and lead paint, and gives the Code Enforcement Department authority to condemn and placard unfit structures and to place liens for city costs. The Fire Marshal’s Office is active as well: in November 2025 alone it completed 194 inspections and issued 118 permits.
Lead paint for newly converted rentals
Under RSA 130-A:5-d, beginning July 1, 2024, a building erected before 1978 that is newly converted to rental use must obtain lead-safety certification before it is rented. Existing rentals are not covered by that requirement, but owners converting older mill or commercial space to apartments should budget for testing and any required work.
Building a Nashua operating budget
Pulling the pieces together, a Nashua owner’s budget review for 2027 might look like this:
- Property tax: start from the 2025 rate of $16.83 and the current assessment, remembering that the July bill is an estimate and the December bill trues it up.
- Water: add a contingency for the pending 21.34% request until the commission rules.
- Sewer: assume 7% a year for 2027 through 2029 if O-26-023 passes as proposed.
- Electricity: use 14 cents per kWh for supply on Eversource default service, and compare community power and competitive offers at each reset.
- Gas: budget for winter-to-winter swings, and watch the fall cost-of-gas filing.
- Life safety: schedule detector testing and replacement, and budget code upgrades into unit turns.
How the increases add up
To see how these changes combine, take the same hypothetical 20-unit building assessed at $2,500,000, and assume it spends $20,000 a year on water, $15,000 on sewer, buys 60,000 kWh of common-area electricity on Eversource default service, and burns 20,000 therms of gas for central heat. Applying the figures above:
- Property tax: moving from the 2024 rate of $15.90 to the 2025 rate of $16.83 on an unchanged assessment adds about $2,325 a year.
- Water: the full 21.34% request, if granted, adds about $4,270.
- Sewer: the first 7% step in 2027 adds about $1,050.
- Electricity supply: 60,000 kWh at 14.009 cents instead of 11.2 cents adds about $1,685.
- Gas: 20,000 therms at Liberty’s proposed $0.9162 instead of $0.6088 would add about $6,150.
Together that is roughly $15,500 a year, or about $775 per unit, from rate changes alone, before any change in consumption, insurance or payroll. Several of those inputs are proposals rather than final rates, so the real figure could be lower, but the exercise shows why a budget built on prior-year actuals can understate costs in Nashua by a meaningful margin.
Our NOI calculator is a quick way to see how each of these changes flows through to net operating income.
Levers Nashua owners can still pull
Most of these rates are set by the city or the Public Utilities Commission, but owners are not without options:
- File abatements on time. The March 1 deadline under RSA 76:16 is firm. An owner whose assessment rose faster than the citywide average in a revaluation year, or whose building has condition issues the assessor may not have seen, should gather rent rolls, expense statements and repair estimates well before the deadline.
- Review electricity supply at every reset. With Eversource default service and Nashua Community Power both resetting periodically, and competitive suppliers also available, house-meter accounts can be moved to whichever supply option is cheapest for the coming period.
- Cut water use before rates rise. Because sewer charges typically follow water use, every gallon saved is billed twice. Low-flow fixtures, toilet flapper replacements and leak detection pay back faster as both rates climb.
- Shift utilities where leases allow. Separately metered units, or ratio billing where permitted, move consumption costs to the households that control them. Changes generally take effect only as leases renew, so the transition is gradual.
- Follow the dockets. Pennichuck’s case DW 26-027 and Liberty’s cost-of-gas filings are public, and the commission accepts comment from customers. Even when a request is granted, the final figure and timing are often clear months in advance, which gives owners time to adjust rents at renewal.
Why Nashua operating costs matter at sale time
Operating costs feed directly into value. A buyer will rebuild the expense budget using current tax rates and utility tariffs, not last year’s actuals, so a building that has absorbed the 2025 tax increase and budgeted for the water and sewer changes will present more credibly than one showing outdated numbers. Owners who pass utilities through to tenants, or who have sub-metered water and electricity, have more protection from these increases, and buyers notice that.
For market context and recent activity, see our Nashua market page and the New Hampshire markets page.
