Bottom Line for New Hampshire Nonprofits
- ✓Licensed child care volunteers who might be alone with children or are counted in staff-to-child ratios — before working with children and every 5 years (He-C 4002.40; RSA 170-E:7)
- ✓Youth recreation camp staff, including volunteers, and youth skill camp volunteers who may be left alone with a child — including sports, arts and science camps of 8+ hours a year over 3 or more consecutive days (RSA 170-E:56, II; He-C 4003.17; He-C 4004.03(c))
- ✓Volunteers with direct client contact at health facilities licensed under RSA 151, such as nursing homes, assisted living and home health (RSA 151:2-d, II)
- +4 more required roles below
State Laws That Apply to Volunteer Background Checks
School Employee and Designated School Volunteer Criminal History Records Check
RSA 189:13-aRequires a fingerprint-based State Police and FBI criminal history records check before a final offer of school employment and on designated volunteers, meaning the volunteer categories the school board designates by policy; other volunteers need not be checked. The applicant or designated volunteer submits the State Police release form and fingerprints to the school, which may charge the actual cost, and records must be destroyed within 60 days. Nonpublic schools may opt in. Since 2023, suspended or revoked educators may not volunteer.
Child Care Personnel Background Check
RSA 170-E:7; RSA 170-E:29-aRequires an FBI fingerprint check and registry searches for licensed child care owners, household members, directors and everyone DHHS rules list, including volunteers who might be alone with children or are counted in staff-to-child ratios (He-C 4002.40), before they work with children and every 5 years. DHHS checks the NH sex offender and abuse/neglect registries, the sex offender registries of every state lived in during the past 5 years, and the National Sex Offender Registry, and must decide eligibility within 45 days; since 2025 a pending charge for a listed offense also disqualifies. RSA 170-E:29-a applies the same system to residential child care institutions and agencies.
Municipal Volunteer Background Check Authority
RSA 41:9-bLets a town require a background investigation and a State Police criminal history check (state only, or state and FBI with fingerprints) before a final offer for its own positions that work with or around children or elderly persons, enter homes, or handle money; candidates for volunteer positions in the municipality are included. The town may charge the candidate the actual cost.
County Volunteer Background Check Authority
RSA 28:10-cAuthorizes county commissioners to require background checks on candidates for volunteer county positions; the definition of 'candidate for employment' explicitly includes volunteers.
Who Must Be Screened in New Hampshire
!Legally Required to Be Screened
- •Licensed child care volunteers who might be alone with children or are counted in staff-to-child ratios — before working with children and every 5 years (He-C 4002.40; RSA 170-E:7)
- •Youth recreation camp staff, including volunteers, and youth skill camp volunteers who may be left alone with a child — including sports, arts and science camps of 8+ hours a year over 3 or more consecutive days (RSA 170-E:56, II; He-C 4003.17; He-C 4004.03(c))
- •Volunteers with direct client contact at health facilities licensed under RSA 151, such as nursing homes, assisted living and home health (RSA 151:2-d, II)
- •Volunteers in DHHS-licensed, certified or funded programs who may have contact with vulnerable adults — BEAS registry check before starting and every year (RSA 161-F:49, VII)
- •Residential child care program volunteers 18 and older, and child-placing agency volunteers with regular contact with children (He-C 4001.31; He-C 6448.07; RSA 170-E:29-a)
- •Public school volunteers in categories the school board designates by policy — fingerprint-based state and FBI check (RSA 189:13-a, VII)
- •Foster and kinship care parents and every other adult in the home — fingerprint-based national check and central registry check (RSA 170-E:29, II-a)
Optional — no New Hampshire statute we found requires a check
- ◦volunteers for town or city positions, if the municipality requires it (RSA 41:9-b)
- ◦volunteers for county positions, if the county commissioners require it (RSA 28:10-c)
- ◦nonpublic school volunteers, if the school elects to check (RSA 189:13-a, I(b))
Types of Background Checks Required in New Hampshire
How to Get Background Checks in New Hampshire
$5 per check — a national criminal database search, sex offender registries in all 50 states and an SSN trace, with human FCRA review when a record needs it. It never replaces a check New Hampshire law requires.
Start Free Today →Volunteer Screening in New Hampshire: What You Need to Know
New Hampshire makes it a class A felony for a person convicted of a sexual assault, a felony child-sexual-abuse-image offense or a felony physical assault on a minor to knowingly volunteer in any role serving mainly minors, supervising minors or working one-on-one with them; a 2024 rewrite effective January 1, 2025 broadened this bar, and failing to disclose such a conviction when applying to volunteer is itself a felony (RSA 632-A:10). Youth skill camps, including many sports camps, must keep a background-check policy for volunteers who may be left alone with children and certify it to DHHS every year (RSA 170-E:56, II; He-C 4004.07). New Hampshire’s own credit-reporting law bars background-check companies from reporting arrests or convictions more than 7 years old except for jobs paying $20,000 or more (RSA 359-B:5), though whether that survives federal preemption and whether it reaches volunteer screening are unresolved. After annulment, on payment of a fee of up to $100 that can be waived for indigency, a record is removed from State Police files, and applicants may be asked only about crimes that have not been annulled (RSA 651:5, X).
Compliance Tips for New Hampshire Nonprofits
- 1
Keep a written list of every volunteer and what they do: New Hampshire’s volunteer immunity applies only if the organization has a record showing the person is its volunteer, and volunteer coaches and sports officials are covered only if they hold proper certification or validation of competence in their sport (RSA 508:17).
- 2
If you run a sports, arts or science camp or clinic of 8+ hours a year over 3 or more consecutive days, it may be a youth skill camp: check every volunteer who may be left alone with a child before that happens and again each calendar year, and file the DHHS certification with the $25 fee before campers arrive (RSA 170-E:56, II; He-C 4004).
- 3
In licensed child care, a volunteer who might be alone with children or counts in ratios must submit through the NHCIS portal before working; before DHHS’s first notice the volunteer may attend orientation or training only and may not interact with children; after a clean fingerprint result they may be present only if never alone and under direct supervision of an eligible staff member (DHHS has 45 days after receiving everything; He-C 4002.40(i)–(j); RSA 170-E:7, III).
- 4
Ask about criminal history only in the non-annulled form — Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime that has not been annulled by a court? — and ask directly about the convictions that bar work with minors under RSA 632-A:10 (RSA 651:5, X(f)).
- 5
School volunteers: ask the district which volunteer categories its board designates; designated volunteers submit the State Police release form and fingerprints to the school, which may charge the actual cost (RSA 189:13-a, II, IV, VII).
Frequently Asked Questions
Does New Hampshire require background checks for my nonprofit’s volunteers?
Only for volunteers in specific roles or settings; no New Hampshire rule covers every nonprofit. New Hampshire has no law requiring every nonprofit to screen volunteers, but checks are mandatory in specific settings: licensed child care (volunteers who might be alone with children or count in staff-to-child ratios, every 5 years; He-C 4002.40), residential child care and child-placing agencies (RSA 170-E:29-a), youth recreation camps and youth skill camps, including sports camps (RSA 170-E:56, II; He-C 4003.17; He-C 4004), health facilities licensed under RSA 151 (volunteers with direct client contact; RSA 151:2-d, II), DHHS-licensed, certified or funded adult programs (BEAS registry; RSA 161-F:49, VII), and public-school volunteers the school board designates (RSA 189:13-a, VII).
How long does a New Hampshire volunteer background check take?
Official state checks: DHHS must decide child care and residential child care eligibility within 45 days of receiving all required information (RSA 170-E:7, III; RSA 170-E:29-a, V); we found no published State Police turnaround standard, so confirm current processing times with the Criminal Records Unit. VolunteerBadge's national criminal search returns most results in minutes; a record that needs human FCRA review can take up to about 72 hours.