Free State Project

The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that the Free State Project is not a political party but a nonprofit organization. Participants of the FSP signed a statement of intent declaring that they intended to move to New Hampshire within five years of the drive reaching 20,000 participants. This statement of intent was intended to function as a form of assurance contract. , 20,000 people have signed this statement of intent, completing the original goal, and 1,909 people are listed as "early movers" to New Hampshire on the FSP website, saying they had made their move prior to the 20,000-participant trigger. In the 2017–2018 term of the 400-member New Hampshire House of Representatives, 17 seats were held by Free Staters. The FSP is a social movement generally based upon decentralized decision making. The group hosts various events, but most of FSP's activities depend upon volunteers and no formal plan dictates to participants or movers what their actions should be in New Hampshire. As of May 2022, approximately 6,232 participants have moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project. The FSP mission statement, adopted in 2005, states: The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.