New Hampshire Sets No Season for Studded Tires

The New Hampshire tire rules occupy seven consecutive sections of the vehicle equipment chapter, RSA 266:47 through 266:53, and it is worth naming what they do cover in order to see what they leave out. RSA 266:47 makes it unlawful to use or sell regrooved used passenger car tires. RSA 266:48 is the operative duty and the delegation. RSA 266:49 lists the four visual defects that put a tire out of safe driving condition: a fabric break or a cut over one inch measured on the outside and deep enough to reach the body cords, or a temporary repair by blowout patch or boot; any bump, bulge or knot related to separation or partial failure of the tire structure; any exposed ply or cord structure; and a portion of the tread design completely worn where the worn portion is large enough to affect traction and stopping ability. RSA 266:51 prescribes how tread depth is measured, with a gauge calibrated in thirty-seconds of an inch, read in a major tread groove nearest the centre at 2 points of the circumference not closer than 15 inches. RSA 266:53 exempts farm vehicles registered under RSA 261, self-propelled combines, self-propelled corn and hay harvesting machines, and tractors used exclusively for agriculture.

Nothing in that closed sequence mentions studs, metal projections, calendar dates or winter conditions. The only place metal reaches the road surface in New Hampshire law is definitional: RSA 259:54 defines a "metal tire" as every tire the surface of which in contact with the highway is wholly or partly of metal or other hard, nonresilient material, and RSA 266:50 says a vehicle is considered equipped with solid rubber, iron, steel or other hard tires when it has 2 or more of that kind. Those provisions bite on the vehicle class, not on a rubber tire carrying studs, and the consequence attached to them is a speed limit rather than a ban: RSA 265:66, II caps a vehicle equipped with solid rubber or cushion tires at 10 miles per hour.

The Department of Safety side is equally empty. The commissioner's motor vehicle rules at Saf-C 3200 carried a part on wheels and tires, and its list of prohibited tires at Saf-C 3211.04 was closed and short: a vehicle was rejected only if radial and bias-ply tires sat on the same axle, if different tire sizes sat on the same axle other than compatible US and metric sizes, or if the tires were marked "for farm use only", "off highway use only", or "racing only". Studs appear nowhere in that list, and the only occurrences of the word "stud" in the whole chapter refer to wheel bolts, nuts, studs or lugs being loose, missing or damaged.

One large change makes this page different from what it would have said a year ago. New Hampshire has abolished periodic motor vehicle inspection. RSA 266:1, the inspection requirement, is printed on the General Court site as "Repealed by 2025, 141:253, IV, eff. Jan. 31, 2026," and RSA 266:1-a, 266:1-b and 266:2 through 266:8 were repealed by the same act, with only the school bus inspection at RSA 266:7 surviving. Saf-C 3211 was adopted under the rulemaking authority of RSA 21-P:14, V(a) and RSA 266:1, so the inspection rejection criteria have lost the annual lane they were written for. The statutory duty in RSA 266:48 is unaffected: it binds the driver on the road, not the inspection station, and it is enforced roadside like any other equipment rule.

Practical effect for a New Hampshire driver: you may fit studded winter tires whenever you choose and leave them on year round, and no statute requires you to remove them by a spring date the way New York, Maine and several other snow states do. What you cannot do is run a worn or damaged tire. A stud pattern that has torn the tread, exposed cord, or left a completely worn area big enough to affect traction and stopping ability puts the tire outside RSA 266:49 whatever the season, and studs give no defence to that.

RSA 266:48 states the duty in mandatory terms, that it "shall be unlawful" to drive on the ways without tires in safe operating condition, but it fixes no penalty, so the general provision applies: under RSA 651:2, IV(a) a violation carries a fine of no more than $1,000 for an individual, and RSA 106-L:10, I adds a penalty assessment of $2 or 24 percent of the fine, whichever is greater, on any fine for a violation of RSA title XXI. The working figure comes from the uniform fine schedule developed under RSA 502-A:19-b, V and printed on the "Notice of Fine, Division of Motor Vehicles" that accompanies the summons under RSA 262:44, I.

A tire charge is eligible for plea by mail, and the plea and payment must reach the Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles within 30 days of the date of the summons. A driver who lets that lapse is defaulted under RSA 262:44, III(a), pays an administrative processing fee on top, and has driving privileges suspended under RSA 263:56-a. There is no separate stud offence to be charged, and no seasonal offence, because New Hampshire has never created one.