So you want to become a notary public in New York. Maybe you want a steadier income stream, maybe your employer keeps asking someone in the office to “just go sign things,” or maybe you saw how much freedom a remote online notary practice can give you and thought: I could do that too.
Good news. New York is one of the more straightforward states to get commissioned in. There is no surety bond to buy, no state-mandated pre-licensing course to sit through, and no background check vendor to feed. There is an exam, an application, and a small handful of fees – and that is the whole road.
I am going to walk it with you step by step, using the current rules from the New York Department of State, Division of Licensing Services, and the Notary Public License Law as published in September 2026. Numbers and rules change, so I will point you to the official sources as we go so you can confirm anything before you spend money on it.
Disclaimer: This article is general information about the notary commissioning process in New York State, current as of late October 2026. It is not legal advice, and I am not your attorney. Fees, forms, and procedures are set by the New York Department of State and can change – always confirm the details on the official DOS pages before you apply.
First, What a New York Notary Actually Is
A notary public in New York is commissioned – that is the official word, not “licensed,” though they mean roughly the same thing here – by the Secretary of State. Your jurisdiction covers the entire state, not just your county, and the appointment runs for a term of four years.
Under Executive Law Section 135, a notary is authorized to:
- Administer oaths and affirmations
- Take affidavits and depositions
- Receive and certify acknowledgments or proof of deeds, mortgages, powers of attorney, and other written instruments
- Demand acceptance or payment of bills of exchange and promissory notes, and protest them for non-payment
- Exercise certain additional powers when a document is being sent to another jurisdiction
That acknowledgment work – confirming that someone signed a document freely and on purpose – is the heart of the practice, and it is also the heart of remote online notarization, which is what I do. If you are reading this site, you have probably seen me do exactly that over a video call.
Two things a New York notary is not allowed to do are worth naming early, because the state takes them seriously. A notary may not give legal advice or draw legal documents unless the notary is an attorney admitted in New York. And a notary may never notarize a document in a transaction where the notary is a party or is directly and pecuniarily interested – you cannot notarize your own deed, and you cannot notarize a mortgage you personally hold.
Step 1: Confirm You Are Eligible
Before anything else, check the basic qualifications drawn from Executive Law Sections 130 and 131 and the Notary Public License Law.
To be appointed, you must:
- Be at least 18 years old.
- Be a resident of New York State, or have an office or place of business in New York State, at the time of appointment. If you move out of state and keep no New York office, your commission is vacated – this trips people up.
- Be of good moral character. The Secretary of State must be satisfied of this before issuing your commission.
- Have the equivalent of a common school education.
- Be familiar with the duties and responsibilities of a notary public.
- Not have been convicted of a crime, unless the Secretary of State makes a finding – under the rules of Correction Law Article 23-A – that the conviction is not a bar to appointment. A record does not automatically end your chances; it does mean the state weighs it.
There is also a small list of disqualified or restricted positions: sheriffs, for one, and anyone previously removed from office as a commissioner of deeds in New York City. If you have ever been removed from a notary or commissioner commission, read that rule before applying.
Note that the appointment of any applicant is always in the discretion of the Secretary of State. Meeting the criteria is necessary, not automatically sufficient.
Step 2: Pass the New York State Notary Exam
Almost everyone must take the written exam. The exemption is narrow but real: attorneys regularly admitted to practice in New York, and court clerks of the Unified Court System who took a Civil Service promotional examination for their title, do not have to test.
Here is what the exam actually looks like, per the Department of State’s published exam information:
- It is multiple choice, and you are given one hour to complete it.
- It covers the Notary Public License Law itself – the general terms, the duties and functions of a notary. The study material is literally the free DOS booklet, which is the same booklet the exam is drawn from.
- The fee is $15, paid on exam day by check or money order payable to the Department of State, or by MasterCard or Visa. No cash. Fees are nonrefundable, and a returned check costs you an additional $20.
- You must bring a current, government-issued photo ID from an accepted list (driver’s license, non-driver ID, passport, military ID, permanent resident card and similar documents are listed) and two number 2 pencils. They are not provided.
- No notes, books, dictionaries, or electronic devices in the exam room. Phones must be off. No guests or children at the site.
Exams are held on scheduled dates across the state – Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Carmel, Franklin Square, Hauppauge, New York City, Plattsburgh, Pomona, Rochester, Sanborn, Syracuse, Utica, and White Plains, among others, depending on the schedule period. At most sites there is no pre-registration: seats are first-come, first-served, so arrive at least fifteen minutes early and expect limited seating. In New York City, however, recent schedules have required emailing the exam unit in advance to be seated – check the current schedule period, because the procedures change from one window to the next.
Results are reported by mail and are given only as passed or failed – you will not receive a numerical score. If you pass, you receive a notice (commonly called a “pass slip”) that you upload with your application. If you fail, you may simply retake the exam on another date; each attempt carries its own $15 fee. Your passing result is valid for two years, which is a generous window in which to finish the paperwork.
The exam is also offered in Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Italian, Korean, Russian, and Chinese – you tell the proctor when you arrive which language version you want.
Practical study advice: read the License Law booklet cover to cover, and pay attention to numbers. Fee caps, term lengths, retention periods, and deadlines are the places where careless readers lose points.
Step 3: Complete and Sign Your Oath of Office
Your application includes an oath of office – form DOS-2201, available on the Department of State site. It has to be sworn before any person authorized to administer an oath, and signed. Download it, fill it out, get it completed properly, and scan it to a PDF, because you will be asked to upload it during the online application.
Do not start acting as a notary before that oath is taken and filed. Under Public Officers Law Section 15, acting without qualification is a misdemeanor.
Step 4: File Your Application Through NY Business Express
This is the step that surprises people who remember mailing paper forms: the application itself is online.
You create (or sign into) a NY.gov account and complete the Notary Public Commission application, identified as DOS-0033, on the New York Business Express portal. The system walks you through personal information, address, and county, and asks you to upload your completed oath of office and your exam pass slip unless you are exempt from testing.
You can log back in later to check the status of your application, which is handy – processing is not instant.
Along with the application you submit a nonrefundable application fee of $60. There is no additional fee for the issuance of the commission itself.
Step 5: Receive Your Commission and Identification Card
Once the Secretary of State is satisfied as to your competency and good character, a commission is issued for a four-year term. You will also receive a notary public identification card showing your name, address, county, and the term of your commission. Keep it somewhere you can find it.
You are now officially able to say “notary” on your business cards – just be careful how you advertise. New York prohibits foreign-language terms that imply you are an attorney and requires a disclaimer with some non-English advertisements. The penalties for getting this wrong can run up to $1,000.
Step 6: The County Clerk Step Happens Without You
You do not have to go to your county clerk to qualify. Under Executive Law Section 131, the Secretary of State transmits your commission, the oath of office, your official signature, and $20 apportioned from your application fee to the county clerk of the county where you reside, by the tenth day of the following month. The county clerk indexes that record so the public can verify your official signature.
If your office or place of business is in New York but you live out of state, the records go to the county where that office is located.
Two optional records are worth knowing about if your work crosses county lines. You may file a certificate of official character with other county clerks (the county clerk charges $10 to file it), and any county clerk where you have qualified can certify your notarial signature for $3 – useful when documents are going to be relied on far away.
Step 7: Buy Only What You Actually Need
New York is refreshingly light on supplies. There is no state requirement for a surety bond, and no official seal must be purchased from an approved vendor, though a stamp or seal impression is standard practice and many signers and title companies expect it.
What is mandatory is recordkeeping. Under 19 NYCRR Part 182, all notaries – not just electronic ones – must maintain records of their notarial acts sufficient to document compliance, and retain them for at least ten years. Get a journal habit from day one; the notaries who regret it are the ones who waited until an audit or a dispute.
Errors and omissions insurance is not required either, but it is strongly recommended. A bond protects the public; E&O protects you, from the legal costs of a mistake you did not mean to make.
Step 8: Add Remote Online Notarization – the Part That Interests Most of My Readers
You cannot start as an electronic notary; you register for remote work after you already hold a traditional commission. The registration of the electronic capability costs its own $60 fee under 19 NYCRR Section 182.11, and your electronic authorization runs only as long as your underlying commission – when your four-year term ends, the electronic registration ends with it, and you renew both.
To perform an electronic notarial act in New York you need:
- Approved communication technology that lets you see and hear the signer live, in real time, with a secure signal. The state sets performance standards rather than publishing one short list of blessed vendors.
- Identity verification for the remote signer using at least two different technological processes designed to detect and deter fraud, unless you personally know the signer.
- An audiovisual recording of every remote notarization, kept for at least ten years.
- Your electronic signature exemplar and digital certificate, and the description of the technology you will use, filed with the Secretary of State when you register.
- An email address on file that you update within five days if it changes.
The scope matters: in a remote online notarization, the notary must be physically located within New York at the time of the act, while the signer can be anywhere – another state, another country, so long as the document or transaction has a real connection to the United States. And certain estate-planning documents – wills, trusts, powers of attorney, DNR decisions among them – cannot be executed electronically under State Technology Law Section 307, so they fall outside remote notarization.
One reassurance for clients: a notary in New York may not be forced to work only electronically. No notary, and no business employing one, may exclusively require that notarizations be done by electronic means.
What It Costs and How Long It Takes
Let me tally it honestly, because “how much does it cost to become a notary” is the number one question I get.
The state fees, as published for the current period:
| Item | Fee |
|---|---|
| Initial notary application | $60 |
| Written exam | $15 |
| Renewal (every four years) | $60 |
| Electronic notary registration | $60 |
| Change of name or address | $10 |
| Duplicate ID card | $10 |
| Returned check | $20 |
A minimum public-facing starting cost is therefore about $75 in state fees for a traditional commission ($60 application plus $15 exam), and about $135 if you also register for electronic notarial work – before anything you buy for yourself: journal, stamp, and, if you go electronic, your RON platform costs.
The realistic timeline is the part nobody publishes as a single number. Getting an exam date can be immediate at walk-in sites or take a scheduling cycle in New York City. After a pass, your mailed notice arrives in a few weeks. After you file a complete application, expect several more weeks for processing and the county record transmission. Four to eight weeks from exam day to commissioned notary is a reasonable planning window, and six to eight weeks from start to finish is common.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Arriving at the exam without the exact requirements: no photo ID, no pencils, cash in hand. Bring the accepted ID and the $15 by check, money order, or card.
- Skipping the study and treating the exam like a formality. New York tests the state’s own License Law. It is not an open-book national survey.
- Waiting for the county clerk. Your records go there automatically. Nothing for you to do.
- Moving out of state mid-term and continuing to notarize. If you keep no office or place of business in New York, you have vacated your office.
- Trying to register as an electronic notary before you hold a commission. The order is fixed.
- Not keeping records from day one, and renewing late. Ten years is not a theoretical number; and if you let your term lapse far enough, you are back to the full qualifying process rather than a simple renewal.
A Short FAQ
Do I need a college degree? No. The standard is the equivalent of a common school education, plus familiarity with a notary’s duties.
Do I need a bond or insurance? No bond is required by New York. E&O insurance is optional but wise.
Can I be a notary if I have a criminal record? Possibly. The conviction does not automatically bar you; the Secretary of State makes a finding under Article 23-A.
Can I notarize for family members? There is no blanket ban on notarizing for relatives. The rule is about interest: if you are a party to the transaction or directly and financially interested in it, you cannot act. Even where it is legal, best practice is to avoid notarizing documents that name you.
How much can I charge? Statute sets the ceiling: $2 for an oath or affirmation and $2 for an acknowledgment or proof of execution, with each additional signer priced as an additional act. For an electronic notarial act, the fee is $25, inclusive of all costs. You may also charge separately for travel and for services that are not notarial acts, but the notarial fee itself is capped.
Can I do this entirely online after I am commissioned? Yes, once you register as an electronic notary – with the notary physically in New York and the signer wherever they happen to be.
Is this worth it? As a side practice, for many people, yes. As a business, it depends entirely on whether you build a route to signers – title companies, law offices, banks, or direct clients through a RON platform. The commission is the small part; the pipeline is the work.
Your Checklist, Condensed
- Confirm residency or a New York office, and your eligibility under the License Law.
- Study the free Notary Public License Law booklet.
- Take the exam: photo ID, two number 2 pencils, $15.
- Keep your pass slip; it is valid for two years.
- Download, complete, and have the oath of office sworn; scan it.
- Apply through NY Business Express (DOS-0033) and pay $60.
- Receive your commission and ID card; note your expiration date now.
- Let the Secretary of State handle the county filing.
- Start a journal and keep records for ten years.
- When you hold a commission, register for electronic notarial work if you want to notarize remotely.
Becoming a New York notary is not complicated – it is simply ordered. Take the exam, sign the oath, pay the fee, and let the county record take care of itself. Then, if you want the flexibility that changed my own practice, add the electronic registration and start meeting signers across a table with no geography.