John Hancock Tax-Exempt Series Fund

Supplement dated July 1, 2010

to the Statement of Additional Information

 dated October 1, 2009

The section entitled “Transfer Agent Services” is revised and replaced with the following:

TRANSFER AGENT SERVICES

John Hancock Signature Services, Inc., P.O. Box 55913, Boston, Massachusetts 02205-5913, a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of MFC, is the transfer and dividend paying agent for the Class A, Class B and Class C shares of the Funds.

Effective July 1, 2010, the fees paid to Signature Services are determined based on the cost to Signature Services’ of providing services to the Trust and to all other John Hancock affiliated funds for which Signature Services serves as transfer agent (“Signature Services Cost”). Signature Service Cost includes (i) an allocable portion of John Hancock corporate overhead and (ii) out-of-pocket expenses, including payments made by Signature Services to intermediaries and other third-parties whose clients and/or customers invest in one or more funds for sub-transfer agency and administrative services provided to those clients/customers.  Signature Services Cost is calculated monthly and allocated by Signature Services among four different categories as described below based generally on the Signature Services Cost associated with providing services to each category in the aggregate.  Within each category, Signature Services Cost is allocated across all of the John Hancock affiliated funds and/or classes for which Signature Services provides transfer agent services, on the basis of relative average daily NAVs.

Municipal Bond Funds.  An amount equal to the total Signature Services Costs associated with providing services to Class A, Class B, and Class C shares of all John Hancock affiliated municipal bond funds for which it serves as transfer agent, including out-of-pocket expenses for subtransfer agency fees, is allocated pro-rata based upon assets of all such shares in the aggregate, without regard to fund or class.  John Hancock municipal bond funds currently only offer Class A, Class B and Class C shares. 

Retail Share Classes of Non-Municipal Bond Funds.  An amount equal to the total Signature Services Costs associated with providing services to Class A, Class B, Class C, Class ADV and Class T shares of all non-municipal series of the Trust and of all other John Hancock affiliated funds for which it serves as transfer agent, including out-of-pocket expenses for subtransfer agency fees, is allocated pro-rata based upon assets of all Class A, B and C shares in the aggregate, without regard to fund or class. The Trust does not currently offer any non-municipal bond funds, and no such funds are described in this SAI.

            Institutional Share Classes.  An amount equal to the total Signature Services Costs associated with providing services to Class I and Class I2 shares of the Trust and all other John Hancock affiliated funds for which it serves as transfer agent, is allocated pro-rata based upon assets of all such shares in the aggregate, without regard to fund or class. The Funds described in this SAI do not offer Class I or I2 shares.

            Retirement Share Classes.  An amount equal to the total Signature Services Costs associated with providing services to Class R1, Class R3, Class R4 and Class R5 shares of the Trust and all other John Hancock affiliated funds for which it serves as transfer agent is allocated pro-rata based upon assets of all such shares in the aggregate, without regard to fund or class.  In addition, payments made to intermediaries and/or record keepers under Class R Service plans will be made by each relevant fund on a fund- and class- specific basis pursuant to the applicable plan. The Funds described in this SAI do not offer Class R1, Class R3, Class R4 or Class R5 shares.

In applying the foregoing methodology, Signature Services seeks to operate its aggregate transfer agency operations on an “at cost” or “break even” basis.  The allocation of aggregate transfer agency costs to categories of funds and/or classes assets seeks to ensure that shareholders of each class within each category will pay the same or a very similar level of transfer agency fees for the delivery of similar services.  Under this methodology, the actual costs associated with providing particular services to a particular fund and/or share classes during a period of time, including payments to intermediaries for sub-transfer agency services to clients or customers whose assets are invested in a particular fund or share class, are not charged to and borne by that particular fund or share classes during that period.  Instead, they are included in Signature Services Cost, which is then allocated to the applicable aggregate asset category described above and then allocated to all assets in that category based on relative NAVs.  Applying this methodology could result in some funds and/or classes having higher or lower transfer agency fees than they would have had if they bore only fund- or class-specific costs directly or indirectly attributable to them or if the Trust continued to charge transfer agent fees based on the methodology in effect prior to July 1, 2010.