Acknowledgment vs. Jurat: The Choice a California Notary Cannot Make

Complete the wrong certificate and California gives you no way to correct it. The handbook states the position in one sentence: "There are no provisions in the law that allow for the correction of a completed notarial act." The remedy it offers is not a correction at all — you notarize the signature again, with a new certificate, a new date and a new journal entry, which works only if the signer is still in front of you.

That is why the difference between an acknowledgment and a jurat is worth more than the three minutes it takes to learn. They certify different facts. One of them obliges you to administer an oath and the other does not, and failing to administer an oath you were required to administer is a ground for discipline carrying a civil penalty of up to $750.

And you do not get to decide which one the document needs. That is where the two certificates stop being a matter of vocabulary.

This guide covers the two certificates the handbook calls the most frequently completed, plus the third one it describes as "not commonly used" — proof of execution by a subscribing witness — including the documents on which that one is prohibited outright. Everything below is drawn from the California Notary Public Handbook, January 2026 edition, published by the Secretary of State, and from the code sections that handbook reproduces or cites. If you are not yet commissioned, the route in is written up separately in How to Become a Notary in California.

What each certificate actually certifies

The handbook ranks these two itself, so the ranking is not editorial. Of the acknowledgment: "The form most frequently completed by the notary public is the certificate of acknowledgment." Of the jurat: "The second form most frequently completed by a notary public is the jurat (Government Code section 8202)."

In a certificate of acknowledgment, the handbook lists three things the notary certifies:

• "That the signer personally appeared before the notary public on the date indicated in the county indicated"
• "To the identity of the signer"
• "That the signer acknowledged executing the document"

In a jurat, the list runs to four:

• "That the signer personally appeared before the notary public on the date indicated and, in the county indicated"
• "That the signer signed the document in the presence of the notary public"
• "That the notary public administered the oath or affirmation"
• "To the identity of the signer"

Two entries are on the jurat list and not on the other, and both of them are things you have to do, not things you have to check. The handbook puts the practical consequence in its questions and answers, in the form a notary actually asks it — am I required to see the person sign the document at the time I perform the notarization?

A. It depends on the document being notarized. When preparing a jurat, the person requesting the jurat must appear before you, take an oath, and sign the document in your presence. When preparing a certificate of acknowledgment, the document can be signed before the person brings it to you for notarization. In an acknowledgment, the signer must personally appear before you and acknowledge that the signer executed the document, not that the signer executed the document in your presence. For both a jurat and an acknowledgment, the notary public must certify to the identity of the signer.

Personal appearance is the one thing neither certificate will do without, and the handbook attaches a note to both forms saying so. For the acknowledgment: "An acknowledgment cannot be affixed to a document mailed or otherwise delivered to a notary public whereby the signer did not personally appear before the notary public, even if the signer is known by the notary public." For the jurat, the same note plus the two extra acts — it cannot be affixed "whereby the signer did not personally appear, take an oath, and sign in the presence of the notary public, even if the signer is known by the notary public."

This guide is free information. It is not the course. Reading it does not count toward California's notary education requirement — six hours for a first commission, three for a refresher — and cannot. That requirement is satisfied only by completing a course of study the Secretary of State has approved and receiving that vendor's Proof of Completion certificate. This page is general information about California notary law, and it is not legal advice.

Side by side

That table summarizes the rules quoted in the sections below. It is not a statement that these are the only rules governing the three certificates, and it is not a list of every certificate a California notary may complete — the handbook separately covers signature by mark, certified copies of powers of attorney, tangible copy certification of an electronic record, and depositions.

Who decides which certificate goes on the document

Here is the honest version, because it is more useful than a tidy one: the handbook contains no sentence saying that the signer chooses the certificate. What it contains is a prohibition on the notary doing it.

California notaries are prohibited from performing any duties that may be construed as the practice of law. Among the acts which constitute the practice of law are the preparation, drafting, or selection or determination of the kind of any legal document, or giving advice in relation to any legal documents or matters. If asked to perform such tasks, a California notary public should decline and refer the requester to an attorney.

Read the second clause carefully, because it is the one that reaches the question in front of you. Giving advice in relation to any legal documents or matters is an act constituting the practice of law. The question a customer actually asks — which certificate does my document need? — is a question about a legal document. The handbook does not treat that as a close call, and rather than answering it, it tells you what to do: decline, and refer the requester to an attorney.

The same posture shows up in the statute governing how a notary may advertise. A non-attorney notary who advertises notarial services in a language other than English "by signs or other means of written communication, with the exception of a single desk plaque" must post with that advertisement a notice in English and in the other language setting out two things: "[t]he fees set by statute which a notary public may charge", and this statement — "I am not an attorney and, therefore, cannot give legal advice about immigration or any other legal matters." (Government Code section 8219.5.) That requirement is tied to written advertising in another language and does not reach every notary — but the sentence the Legislature chose to put in a notary's window is a description of what a notary is.

So what do you do with a document that arrives carrying no notarial wording at all? The handbook closes the obvious escape hatch without opening another one. Its note under both certificate forms is flat: "a notary public seal and signature cannot be affixed to a document without the correct notarial wording." You cannot stamp your way past a missing certificate, and you cannot supply the missing decision yourself.

What you may do is complete the certificate the document already carries, and complete it correctly. The handbook's Foreign Language section states it directly: "The notary public is responsible for completing the acknowledgment or jurat form." Reading wording that is already on the page and following it is not selecting it.

The wider prohibition — and how a well-meaning notary crosses it by being helpful — is set out in the first-appointment guide.

Identification: the same standard, reached two different ways

Identification is one place where the two certificates converge rather than diverge, and knowing that saves you from inventing a distinction that is not there.

For an acknowledgment, Civil Code section 1185(a) is the source: "The acknowledgment of an instrument shall not be taken unless the officer taking it has satisfactory evidence that the person making the acknowledgment is the individual who is described in and who executed the instrument."

For a jurat, Government Code section 8202(a) does not restate the standard — it points at the same one. The notary "shall determine, from satisfactory evidence as described in Section 1185 of the Civil Code, that the affiant is the person executing the document."

Section 1185(b) then defines satisfactory evidence as the absence of information that would lead a reasonable person to believe the individual is not who they claim to be, and any one of the following: the oath or affirmation of a single credible witness personally known to the officer; the oath or affirmation under penalty of perjury of two credible witnesses; or reasonable reliance on one of the identification documents listed in paragraphs (3) and (4), each of which must be "current or has been issued within five years". The document lists themselves — and the point at which the handbook's summary of the second one drops that requirement — are set out in How to Identify a Signer in California.

The credible-witness routes are not free alternatives to an identification document. Section 1185(b)(1)(A) requires the witness to be personally known to the officer and proven to the officer by a paragraph (3) or (4) document, and then attaches five conditions to the witness's oath — among them that it be "the reasonable belief of the witness that the circumstances of the person making the acknowledgment are such that it would be very difficult or impossible for that person to obtain another form of identification" and that "[t]he person making the acknowledgment does not possess any of the identification documents named in paragraphs (3) and (4)." That last one is a gate rather than a preference: a signer who is carrying an acceptable identification document cannot be identified by a credible witness instead. Subdivision (b)(2) carries the same five conditions into the two-witness route, requiring the witnesses' identities to be proven by a paragraph (3) or (4) document and that "each statement in paragraph (1) is true." A notary who fails to obtain the satisfactory evidence subparagraph (A) requires is subject to a civil penalty "not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000)."

Knowing the person is not evidence. The handbook answers this one directly, and the answer covers both certificates at once: "An acknowledgment may not be taken or a jurat executed on the basis of personal knowledge alone. Satisfactory evidence of the signer's identity must be provided and noted in the journal." The question that prompted it was about a neighbor of twenty years.

Whichever route you used, it goes in the journal. Government Code section 8206(a)(2) requires "[a] statement as to whether the identity of a person making an acknowledgment or taking an oath or affirmation was based on satisfactory evidence" — and, where identity was established by satisfactory evidence under Civil Code section 1185, the journal shall contain "the signature of the credible witness swearing or affirming to the identity of the individual or the type of identifying document, the governmental agency issuing the document, the serial or identifying number of the document, and the date of issue or expiration of the document." Within that subparagraph it is an alternative: a credible witness signs, or you record the document details.

Subparagraph (E) then states a second requirement for the two-witness case, and here the handbook and the statute do not line up. Where identity was established by the oaths or affirmations of two credible witnesses whose own identities were proven by a paragraph (3) or (4) document, subparagraph (E) requires the notary to "record in the journal the type of documents identifying the witnesses, the identifying numbers on the documents identifying the witnesses, and the dates of issuance or expiration of the documents identifying the witnesses" — and it names no signature there. The handbook's General Information paragraph states it conjunctively instead: with two witnesses "the journal must contain the signatures of the credible witnesses and the type of identifying documents, the identifying numbers of the documents and the dates of issuance or expiration of the documents presented by the witnesses to establish their identities." Taking both signatures and recording both documents is the only course that satisfies either reading, and it costs a line. The same divergence is worked through in California notary journal requirements.

A second divergence sits in the same comparison. That same General Information paragraph narrows subparagraph (D)'s trigger — it states the rule "[i]f identity was established based on the oath of a credible witness personally known to the notary public", where the statute states it "[i]f identity was established by satisfactory evidence pursuant to Section 1185 of the Civil Code", which reaches an identification document as well as a witness. The statute is the text to follow.

The journal also records the "[d]ate, time, and type of each official act", which is where the acknowledgment-or-jurat distinction gets written down permanently. The full journal requirements have their own guide: California notary journal requirements.

One identification rule that attaches only to a jurat

Government Code section 8230 attaches a condition to executing a jurat, and by its terms it reaches nothing else. If you execute a jurat and the statement sworn or subscribed to sits in a document purporting to identify the affiant which includes the person's birthdate or age together with a purported photograph or finger or thumbprint, you "shall require, as a condition to executing the jurat, that the person verify the birthdate or age contained in the statement" by showing either "[a] certified copy of the person's birth certificate" or "[a]n identification card or driver's license issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles."

Note how narrow that is. It is triggered by the character of the document, not by anything about the signer, and it is the sort of provision a notary meets once and thereafter has to recognize on sight.

The oath is the duty a jurat adds

Government Code section 8202(a) is short, and this is the whole of it:

When executing a jurat, a notary shall administer an oath or affirmation to the affiant and shall determine, from satisfactory evidence as described in Section 1185 of the Civil Code, that the affiant is the person executing the document. The affiant shall sign the document in the presence of the notary.

Three obligations in two sentences: administer, determine, witness the signature. A notary's power to administer oaths is not incidental to the office — the Code of Civil Procedure names the notary public among the officers who have "the power to administer oaths and affirmations" (section 2093), and Government Code section 8205(a) makes it a duty of a notary public, when requested, "[t]o take depositions and affidavits, and administer oaths and affirmations, in all matters incident to the duties of the office, or to be used before any court, judge, officer, or board."

There is no prescribed wording, and the handbook says so before offering one:

There is no prescribed wording for the oath, but an acceptable oath would be "Do you swear or affirm that the statements in this document are true?" When administering the oath, the signer and notary public traditionally each raise their right hand, but this is not a legal requirement.

That footnote does two jobs. It gives you a form of words, and it tells you that the raised hand — the part everyone pictures — is custom rather than law. What is not custom is the oath itself.

Skipping it is a named ground for discipline with a price attached. Government Code section 8214.1(k) lists "[f]ailure to administer the oath or affirmation as required by paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 8205" among the grounds on which the Secretary of State may refuse to appoint, or may revoke or suspend a commission. Section 8214.15(b) then provides that a violation of subdivision (k), among others, "is punishable by a civil penalty not to exceed seven hundred fifty dollars ($750)" — and it says so "[i]n addition to any commissioning or disciplinary sanction". The penalty sits on top of the commission consequence rather than in place of it.

What the oath does not make you responsible for. Both prescribed forms carry the same boxed notice at the top, and it is there to draw exactly this line: "A notary public or other officer completing this certificate verifies only the identity of the individual who signed the document to which this certificate is attached, and not the truthfulness, accuracy, or validity of that document." Civil Code section 1189(a)(1) and Government Code section 8202(b) both require that notice and both add: "This notice shall be legible." You administer the oath. You do not vouch for what was sworn.

The consequence of a false oath lands on the person who took it. The handbook reproduces Penal Code section 118, which defines perjury to include a person who, "having taken an oath that he or she will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly before any competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any of the cases in which the oath may by law of the State of California be administered, willfully and contrary to the oath, states as true any material matter which he or she knows to be false" — and Penal Code section 126, under which perjury "is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for two, three or four years." The handbook does not spell out the link between a jurat and a perjury prosecution in a single sentence. What it does is print the oath duty, the jurat form and the perjury statute in the same booklet.

The wording, and why you may not improvise it

Civil Code section 1188 puts the mechanics briefly: an officer taking an acknowledgment "shall endorse thereon or attach thereto a certificate pursuant to Section 1189." Section 1189(a)(3) then provides that a certificate of acknowledgment taken within this state "shall be in the following form", and prints it. Government Code section 8202(d) does the same for the jurat, and section 8202(b) requires that a jurat be attached "[t]o any affidavit subscribed and sworn to before a notary".

Four rules follow from the form being statutory rather than suggested.

1. Finish it while the seal goes on. "The certificate of acknowledgment must be filled completely out at the time the notary public's signature and seal are affixed." Not doing so is its own ground for discipline — Government Code section 8214.1(j), "[f]ailure to complete the acknowledgment at the time the notary's signature and seal are affixed to the document" — and it falls in the same $750 civil-penalty band as a missed oath.
2. The acknowledgment certificate is executed under penalty of perjury. The handbook says so in those words, citing Civil Code section 1189(a)(1), and the prescribed form carries the sentence "I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct." Worth noticing on the page: the proof-of-execution form at Civil Code section 1195(e) ends at "WITNESS my hand and official seal." followed by signature and seal lines, and the jurat form at Government Code section 8202(d) ends at "proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) who appeared before me." followed only by seal and signature lines. Neither of those two carries a certification by the notary under penalty of perjury.
3. A false statement in a certificate is expensive twice over. "The notary public who willfully states as true any material fact known to be false is subject to a civil penalty not exceeding $10,000." (Civil Code section 1189(a)(4).) Separately, "[e]xecution of any certificate as a notary public containing a statement known to the notary public to be false" is a ground for discipline under Government Code section 8214.1(l), which section 8214.15(a) makes punishable by a civil penalty of up to "one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500)."
4. Out-of-state forms are allowed, within a limit. A California notary "may complete a certificate of acknowledgment required in another state or jurisdiction of the United States on documents to be filed in that other state or jurisdiction, provided the form does not require the notary public to determine or certify that the signer holds a particular representative capacity or to make other determinations and certifications not allowed by California law." Civil Code section 1189(b) runs the other way, for certificates arriving here: one taken in another place "shall be sufficient in this state if it is taken in accordance with the laws of the place where the acknowledgment is made."

And then the rule this guide opened with, which is why the other four matter: "There are no provisions in the law that allow for the correction of a completed notarial act." If you find an error afterwards, the handbook's instruction is to notarize the signature on the document again, and "[a]ll requirements for notarization are required for the new notarial act, including completing and attaching a new certificate containing the date of the new notarial act and completing a new journal entry."

Proof of execution by a subscribing witness

The third certificate exists for one situation: the person who signed cannot come to you. The handbook introduces it plainly — if a person, called the principal, "has signed a document but does not personally appear before a notary public, another person can appear on the principal's behalf to prove the principal signed (or 'executed') the document. That person is called a subscribing witness." The Code of Civil Procedure supplies the definition: "A subscribing witness is one who sees a writing executed or hears it acknowledged, and at the request of the party thereupon signs his name as a witness." (Section 1935.)

The handbook says outright that it is "not commonly used", and the shape of the requirements explains why.

Three things the subscribing witness must swear to. Civil Code section 1197 states them compactly — the subscribing witness "must prove that the person whose name is subscribed to the instrument as a party is the person described in it, and that such person executed it, and that the witness subscribed his name thereto as a witness." The handbook expands the same three into oath language: that the subscribing witness personally knows the principal; that the witness "saw the principal sign the document or in the presence of the principal heard the principal acknowledge that the principal signed the document"; and that the witness "was requested by the principal to sign the document as a witness and that the subscribing witness did so".

You cannot identify a subscribing witness from an identification document. Not from a driver's license, not from a passport. Civil Code section 1196: "A witness shall be proved to be a subscribing witness by the oath of a credible witness who provides the officer with any document satisfying the requirements of paragraph (3) or (4) of subdivision (b) of Section 1185." The handbook's own note is more explicit still:

The identity of the subscribing witness must be established by the oath of a credible witness who personally knows the subscribing witness and who is known personally by the notary public. In addition, the credible witness must present an identification document satisfying the requirements of Civil Code section 1185(b)(3) or (4).

So the act takes the subscribing witness, a credible witness and you — and the credible witness has to be someone you personally know. That is the practical bar. The handbook's worked example makes the point without stating it: the subscribing witness picks a credible witness who "has worked with Nancy Notary for several years."

Both witnesses touch your journal. The subscribing witness signs it. The credible witness signs it too — or you record in the journal "the type of identification document presented, the governmental agency issuing the document, the serial number of the document, and the date of issue or expiration of the document."

Where a proof of execution may not be used

This is the part to know before you agree to anything, and it appears in three places that do not use identical language. Take the widest reading.

The handbook's General Information version:

A proof of execution by a subscribing witness cannot be used in conjunction with any power of attorney, quitclaim deed, grant deed (other than a trustee's deed resulting from a decree of foreclosure, or a nonjudicial foreclosure pursuant to Civil Code section 2924, or to a deed of reconveyance), mortgage, deed of trust, security agreement, any instrument affecting real property, or any instrument requiring a notary public to obtain a thumbprint from the party signing the document in the notary public's journal.

Civil Code section 1195(b)(1), reproduced later in the same handbook, states the same prohibition but places the exception differently. Proof of the execution of "a power of attorney, grant deed, mortgage, deed of trust, quitclaim deed, security agreement, or any instrument affecting real property is not permitted pursuant to Section 27287 of the Government Code, though proof of the execution of a trustee's deed or deed of reconveyance is permitted." In the General Information paragraph the trustee's-deed exception sits inside a parenthesis attached to grant deed; in the statute it is a separate clause covering trustee's deeds and deeds of reconveyance. Government Code section 27287, which both of them cite, carries it in a third shape again — as a sentence about that section's own reach: "This section shall not apply to a trustee's deed resulting from a decree of foreclosure, or a nonjudicial foreclosure pursuant to Section 2924 of the Civil Code, or to a deed of reconveyance."

The three texts agree on what is prohibited and differ only in how the narrow exception is scoped. If a document sits inside that exception and a proof is what you are being asked for, that is a question for the party's attorney and not for you.

The second prohibition is easy to miss, because it is defined by a different rule. Civil Code section 1195(b)(2): "Proof of the execution for any instrument requiring a notary public to obtain a thumbprint from the party signing the document in the notary public's journal is not permitted." Which instruments are those? Government Code section 8206(a)(2)(G) answers — "a deed, quitclaim deed, deed of trust, or other document affecting real property, or a power of attorney document", with a carve-out for a trustee's deed resulting from a decree of foreclosure or a nonjudicial foreclosure under Civil Code section 2924, and for a deed of reconveyance. So the thumbprint list and the proof-of-execution ban are wired to each other: if the signature would have required a thumbprint in your journal, a subscribing witness cannot stand in for it. The thumbprint rule carries a penalty of its own, too: a notary who fails to obtain one "shall be subject to a civil penalty not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500)."

Section 27287 is worth reading for its positive half too. Before an instrument can be recorded its execution "shall be acknowledged by the person executing it" or, subject to those exclusions, "proved by subscribing witness or as provided in Sections 1198 and 1199 of the Civil Code" — and in either case the acknowledgment or proof must be "certified as prescribed by law." That is the recording system's reason for wanting an acknowledgment on real-property paper in the first place.

Rules that sit on top of all three

None of these is specific to one certificate, and each of them can stop the act you were about to perform.

• You may not notarize your own document. "A notary public shall not take the acknowledgment or proof of instruments of writing executed by the notary public nor shall depositions or affidavits of the notary public be taken by the notary public." (Government Code section 8224.1.)
• You may not notarize where you have a direct financial or beneficial interest in the transaction (Government Code section 8224). The handbook adds that a notary may notarize for relatives unless doing so would give the notary such an interest, and that "[g]iven California's community property law, care should be exercised if notarizing for a spouse or a domestic partner." Its closing line on the subject: "If in doubt as to whether or not to notarize, the notary public should seek the advice of an attorney."
• You must refuse an incomplete document. "A notary public may not notarize a document that is incomplete." Government Code section 8205(a)(2) says the same from the other direction: a notary "may not accept any acknowledgment or proof of any instrument that is incomplete."
• Physical presence, not a screen. "California law requires a person to appear personally before a notary public to obtain notarial acts like acknowledgments or jurats. This means the party must be physically present before the notary public. A video image or other form of non-physical representation is not a personal appearance in front of a notary public under California State law." Where remote online notarization currently stands — it is arriving in stages — is covered in the first-appointment guide.
• The venue is where the signer stood. "The county named in the heading in the notarial certificate is the county where the signer personally appeared before the notary public." (Government Code section 8200.) Not the county where your oath and bond are filed.

What you may charge

Government Code section 8211 sets maximum fees, and the two subdivisions that matter here are not built the same way.

Subdivision (a): "For taking an acknowledgment or proof of a deed, or other instrument, to include the seal and the writing of the certificate, the sum of fifteen dollars ($15) for each signature taken." Note that it covers a proof as well as an acknowledgment, and that it is priced per signature.

Subdivision (b): "For administering an oath or affirmation to one person and executing the jurat, including the seal, the sum of fifteen dollars ($15)." One sum, for the oath and the certificate together.

You may charge less than the maximum, or nothing. The handbook is explicit that "[t]he charging of a fee and the amount of the fee charged is at the discretion of the notary public or the notary public's employer, provided it does not exceed the maximum fees", and that a journal entry is required "even if no fee was charged, such as 'no fee' or '0.'"

That discretion is not universal in either direction. The handbook numbers five exceptions in which no fee may be collected at all, and it summarizes Government Code section 6100 as running the other way — a notary appointed to act for and on behalf of certain public agencies under section 8202.5 must charge for all services and remit the fees received to the employing agency. Both of those sections state the duty conditionally rather than by job title: section 8202.5 attaches remittance to fees collected by a notary "whose documents have been filed without charge and for whom bond premiums have been paid by the employer of the notary public", and section 6100 permits notarial services without a fee except by a notary "whose fees are required by law to be remitted to the state or any other public agency". Whether it reaches you is worked through in the fees guide.

Charging more than the fees prescribed by the chapter is a ground for discipline under Government Code section 8214.1(h), in the same $750 civil-penalty band as a missed oath. The full schedule, including the services that carry no fee at all, is set out in what California notaries can charge.

What the handbook does not say

These are questions a working notary will have that the January 2026 handbook does not answer, listed so you do not read this article's silence as an answer.

• Who chooses the certificate. It never says. It prohibits the notary from selecting or advising, and it says to refer the requester to an attorney. It does not name the person on whom the decision falls, and it offers no script for asking a signer what their document requires.
• What to do when a document carries no notarial wording. The word loose does not appear in the handbook at all, and there is no discussion of supplying, attaching or offering a blank certificate form. What the handbook states is the prohibition on stamping without wording.
• Which documents require which certificate. Government Code section 27287 tells you a recordable instrument's execution must be acknowledged or proved, and section 8202(b) tells you a jurat attaches to an affidavit subscribed and sworn to. Beyond that, the handbook does not map document types to certificates.
• Proof of execution by other witnesses. Government Code section 27287 points to Civil Code sections 1198 and 1199; Civil Code section 1195(a)(3) allows proof "[b]y other witnesses, in cases mentioned in Section 1198." Neither of those sections is reproduced in the handbook, so nothing here describes that route.
• A required form of words for the oath. The handbook says outright that none is prescribed, and offers one it calls acceptable. It does not say that its example is the right wording in every case.
• What happens to the document if you get the certificate wrong. The handbook tells you the notarial act cannot be corrected and that you should notarize again. It says nothing about the status of the instrument that already carries the defective certificate — that is a legal question, and the handbook's answer to a legal question is to refer the person to an attorney.

Official sources

Do not take an article's word for the wording of a statutory certificate.

• California Notary Public Handbook — www.sos.ca.gov/notary
• Notary Public Disciplinary Guidelines — the Secretary of State's guidelines for the disciplinary process, available on its website or mailed on request
• Secretary of State, Notary Public Section — Business Programs Division, P.O. Box 942877, Sacramento, California 94277-0001; (916) 653-3595
• Not yet commissioned — How to Become a Notary in California
• Renewing a commission — How to Renew Your California Notary Commission