Administering Oaths, Affirmations and Depositions in California

An oath is a notarial act with nothing to fill in. There is no box on a form, no wording prescribed for the oath a jurat requires, and where the oath stands on its own there may be no document either. It is still a statutory duty, and failing to administer one where the law requires it is a named ground on which the Secretary of State may revoke or suspend a commission — Government Code section 8214.1(k), "Failure to administer the oath or affirmation as required by paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 8205."

That paragraph carries a second duty in the same sentence: taking depositions. It is worth reading closely, because the code gives you the power and the price for that one and then goes quiet. Nothing in the handbook describes how a deposition is actually taken.

This guide covers what California law, as reproduced in the handbook, says about oaths, affirmations and depositions — and, just as carefully, where it says nothing. The oath inside a jurat is worked through separately in Acknowledgment vs. jurat, and this page does not repeat it. 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.

Different things get called "the oath"

Disentangle them first. The same two words attach to acts with different statutes, different deadlines and different consequences. What follows is not offered as a closed list — it is the occasions the handbook and the code sections it reproduces state plainly.

1. Your own oath of office. The one you take to qualify. Government Code section 8213(a) gives you "[n]o later than 30 days after the beginning of the term prescribed in the commission" to file an official bond and an oath of office with the county clerk, "and the commission shall not take effect unless this is done within the 30-day period." You take and subscribe it "either in the office of that county clerk or before another notary public in that county." The handbook adds that the deadline does not bend: "Exceptions are not made to the 30-day filing requirement due to mail service delays, county clerk mail processing delays, or for any other reason." This is a step in qualifying, covered in How to Become a Notary in California and — because it recurs every term — in How to Renew Your California Notary Commission.

2. The oath inside a jurat. Government Code section 8202(a) makes administering an oath or affirmation part of executing a jurat, alongside determining identity and watching the affiant sign. That version has its own guide and is not re-explained here.

3. An oath or affirmation you administer as the act itself. No jurat, and possibly no document. Government Code section 8205(a)(3) is its source, and the handbook's summary table of maximum fees gives it a line of its own, headed Oaths/Affirmations and described as "Administering an oath or affirmation to one person". What you may charge for that act when no jurat accompanies it turns out to be one of the questions the schedule does not answer on its face; that is taken up at the end of this guide.

Two more are easy not to count as oaths at all, because neither is the oath the document in front of you is asking for.

4. The oath to a credible witness. Where identity is established that way, "[u]nder oath, the credible witness must swear or affirm that each of the following is true" — five things, listed by Civil Code section 1185. Identifying a signer by credible witness is therefore itself an occasion on which you administer an oath, and the identification rules are set out in How to Identify a Signer in California.

5. The oath to a subscribing witness, in a proof of execution. This one is a whole notarial act built on an oath you administer. The handbook lists three matters the subscribing witness must swear to, and puts each of them under oath in turn. The subscribing witness "must prove (say under oath) that the person who signed the document as a party, the principal, is the person described in the document, and the subscribing witness personally knows the principal"; "must say, under oath, that the subscribing 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 "must say, under oath, that the subscribing witness was requested by the principal to sign the document as a witness and that the subscribing witness did so". The handbook's worked example has the notary swear both witnesses in turn — "Then Nancy puts Sue under oath" — and the statutory certificate in Civil Code section 1195 carries the words "being by me duly sworn" on the face of the document. Note that a proof of execution puts two oaths in front of you rather than one: the credible witness who identifies the subscribing witness is sworn as well. The certificate itself, and the documents on which proof of execution is prohibited, are covered in Acknowledgment vs. jurat.

The duty, in the statute's own words

Government Code section 8205(a) opens "It is the duty of a notary public, when requested:" and paragraph (3) reads in full:

To 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. Any deposition, affidavit, oath, or affirmation shall be signed by the notary public in the notary public's own handwriting.

Two things in two sentences.

The scope clause is broad, and paragraph (3) states no further condition on it. "[I]n all matters incident to the duties of the office, or to be used before any court, judge, officer, or board" covers the affidavit sworn at a counter and testimony taken in a conference room alike. The Code of Civil Procedure states the underlying power from the other direction: section 2093(a) lists the notary public among the officers who have "the power to administer oaths and affirmations."

The handwriting sentence is easy to read past. A deposition, an affidavit, an oath or an affirmation must be signed "in the notary public's own handwriting." The paragraphs on either side carry the same requirement: section 8205(a)(2) imposes it on the certificate of an acknowledgment or proof, and section 8205(a)(4) imposes it on a certified copy of a power of attorney — "The certification shall be signed by the notary public in the notary public's own handwriting." Three consecutive paragraphs, one rule.

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, not legal advice.

Section 8205 is a duty provision, and section 8214.1(d) makes "[f]ailure to discharge fully and faithfully any of the duties or responsibilities required of a notary public" a ground on which the Secretary of State may refuse to appoint, revoke or suspend. Section 8214.15 attaches money in two bands: a "willful violation of subdivision (d)" is punishable by a civil penalty "not to exceed one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500)", a "negligent violation of subdivision (d)" by one "not to exceed seven hundred fifty dollars ($750)", and each of those subdivisions opens "[i]n addition to any commissioning or disciplinary sanction" — so the penalty sits on top of the commission consequence rather than replacing it. How subdivision (d) would apply to a declined deposition request is not something the handbook works through, and neither does this page.

Subdivision (k) does not have to be routed through (d) to cost money. Each of those two bands is a list of grounds rather than a single one, and the $750 list names the oath ground by letter. Section 8214.15(b) reads "a violation of subdivision (h), (j), or (k) of Section 8214.1, or a negligent violation of subdivision (d) of Section 8214.1 is punishable by a civil penalty not to exceed seven hundred fifty dollars ($750)." Failure to administer the oath or affirmation — subdivision (k), the ground named at the top of this page — therefore carries a civil penalty of up to $750 on its own terms, in addition to any commissioning or disciplinary sanction, and with no negligence framing needed to get there. The subdivision (d) bands above are a separate point about a different ground.

Oath and affirmation are a pair, not a hierarchy

The provisions pair them. The duty is to "administer oaths and affirmations." The prescribed jurat form reads "Subscribed and sworn to (or affirmed) before me on this". The journal must record the "[c]haracter of every instrument sworn to, affirmed, acknowledged, or proved before the notary." The handbook's suggested oath is "Do you swear or affirm that the statements in this document are true?" A credible witness must "swear or affirm". Nothing in the handbook makes an affirmation a lesser or conditional substitute, and nothing in it directs you to ask why a person prefers one.

What the handbook does not do is print a provision equating an oath and an affirmation by definition. What it does print is Penal Code section 118, and the whole of subdivision (a) matters here, because it reaches two classes of person rather than one:

Every 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 every person who testifies, declares, deposes, or certifies under penalty of perjury in any of the cases in which the testimony, declarations, depositions, or certification is permitted by law of the State of California under penalty of perjury and willfully states as true any material matter which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of perjury.

Two things follow. Perjury is not carelessness — the statement has to be willful, material, and known by the person making it to be false. And the second half of the subdivision reaches a person who "certifies under penalty of perjury" without reference to an oath at all. That is exactly what the second of the two questions in Code of Civil Procedure section 2094(a), set out in the next section, does: "Do you solemnly state, under penalty of perjury, that the evidence that you shall give in this issue (or matter) shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" So the corpus prints nothing defining an oath and an affirmation as the same thing, but a section 2094(a)(2) affirmation is taken under penalty of perjury, and section 118(a) reaches penalty-of-perjury declarants by its own terms. Either way the consequence of a false statement lands on the person who made it rather than on you; that division of responsibility is worked through in the jurat guide.

Oath wording: none prescribed for a jurat, two questions for a proceeding

These are two different rules, and they are easy to run together.

For the oath a jurat requires, there is no prescribed wording. The handbook says so and then offers one anyway, in a footnote beneath the jurat form:

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.

For an oath in an action or a proceeding, the Code of Civil Procedure supplies wording. Section 2094(a) provides that "[a]n oath, affirmation, or declaration in an action or a proceeding, may be administered by obtaining an affirmative response to one of the following questions", and prints two:

"Do you solemnly state that the evidence you shall give in this issue (or matter) shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

"Do you solemnly state, under penalty of perjury, that the evidence that you shall give in this issue (or matter) shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Read the verb. The statute says an oath may be administered by obtaining an affirmative response to one of these; it does not on its face forbid other wording, and the handbook prints no commentary calling the two exclusive. What they do give you is language the Legislature has written out for the situation a deposition is, with the second available where an invocation of God is not wanted.

Depositions: a power, a price, and a prohibition

Search the handbook and the code sections it reproduces for depositions and three things come back: a power, a price and a prohibition. How little that is, is the useful fact.

The power is section 8205(a)(3), quoted above, together with Code of Civil Procedure section 2093(a).

The price is Government Code section 8211(c), and it is three figures rather than one:

For all services rendered in connection with the taking of any deposition, the sum of thirty dollars ($30), and in addition thereto, the sum of seven dollars ($7) for administering the oath to the witness and the sum of seven dollars ($7) for the certificate to the deposition.

Section 8211 opens by making every line in it a ceiling: "Fees charged by a notary public for the following services shall not exceed the fees prescribed by this section." The handbook's summary table carries the same three components on a Deposition Services row. The rest of the schedule, the place where that table and the statute do not read the same way, and the no-fee exceptions are all in What California Notaries Can Charge — this page does not reproduce them.

The prohibition is Government Code section 8224.1, headed "Writings, depositions or affidavits of notary public; prohibitions against proof or taking by that notary public", and it is one sentence:

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.

Notice what that rule does not contain. The handbook's Conflict of Interest discussion, which works from Government Code section 8224, is conditional: "A notary public may notarize documents for relatives or others, unless doing so would provide a direct financial or beneficial interest to the notary public." Section 8224.1 carries no such qualifier. Your own deposition or affidavit is not a question of interest, disclosure or degree — it is simply not yours to take. Section 8224.1 also sits among the reproduced code sections rather than inside that Conflict of Interest discussion, so a reader working only from the general-information chapters can miss it. The wider set of prohibitions is collected in What a California Notary Cannot Do.

Who else may administer the oath at a deposition

A notary public is not the only officer holding the power, and the Code of Civil Procedure names one other holder specifically. Section 2093(b)(1):

A shorthand reporter certified pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 8020) of Chapter 13 of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code has the power to administer oaths and affirmations and may perform the duties of the deposition officer pursuant to Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 2025.010) of Title 4. The certified shorthand reporter is entitled to receive fees for services rendered during a deposition, including fees for deposition services, as specified in subdivision (c) of Section 8211 of the Government Code.

Two consequences sit on the face of that text. A certified shorthand reporter can both swear the witness and act as deposition officer. And one provision sets the money for both of you: the reporter's entitlement is fixed by the same subdivision (c) of section 8211 that caps what you may charge. Subdivision (b)(2) then extends the reporter subdivision to remote work: "This subdivision also applies to depositions taken by telephone or other remote electronic means as specified in Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 2017.010) and Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 2025.010) of Title 4."

Note carefully whose remote work that sentence covers. Subdivision (b) is the certified shorthand reporter subdivision, and (b)(2) extends that subdivision. The corpus contains no provision addressing a notary public administering an oath at a deposition taken remotely. What it does contain is the personal-appearance rule, stated twice and in two different scopes.

The narrative Electronic Notarizations paragraph gives examples: "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." The word "like" there is exemplary rather than limiting, so it is not a rule written about some other set of acts.

The handbook's Common Questions and Answers states the same rule on ground general to every notarial act, naming none of them: "California law requires a person to physically appear before the notary public to perform a notarial act. A video image or other form of non-physical representation is not considered as personal appearance in front of the notary public under current California law. This means the person must physically be present before the notary public." An oath administered under section 8205(a)(3) is a notarial act. The same answer opens by saying remote online notarization is not authorized at all: "No, current California Law does not provide the authority for California notaries to perform a remote online notarization using audio-video communication." Government Code section 8231 — the section that names the Online Notarization Act — is reproduced in the corpus only as subdivisions (a) and (b), followed by three asterisks, and the same answer adds that the Act "is not set to commence until January 1, 2030, and will not take effect until the Secretary of State certifies that it has completed the technology project (NAP 2.0) necessary to implement the remote online notarization." What the handbook never does is address a deposition specifically, or the position of a notary asked to swear a witness appearing by video. This page does not settle it either.

What the corpus does not describe

The Civil Discovery Act is referenced inside section 2093(b)(1) — "Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 2025.010) of Title 4" — and is not reproduced in the handbook. So the handbook supplies no notice requirements, no rules on who may attend, nothing on transcription, objections or certification of a transcript, and no content requirement for the certificate to the deposition that section 8211(c) prices at seven dollars. It names that certificate and never describes it.

If a deposition request reaches you, that gap is itself the practical answer: the procedure lives in the Civil Discovery Act and in the notice served by the party taking the deposition, not in the notary handbook. Reading the handbook cover to cover will not teach it to you.

The journal entry for an act that may have no document

Every official act goes in the journal. Section 8206(a)(2) requires "[d]ate, time, and type of each official act", the "[c]haracter of every instrument sworn to, affirmed, acknowledged, or proved before the notary", "[t]he signature of each person whose signature is being notarized", a statement about identity, and "[t]he fee charged for the notarial service." The handbook adds that the entry is required whether or not you were paid:

The notary public is required to make an entry in the notary public journal even if no fee was charged, such as "no fee" or "0."

Two of those requirements are written around documents and signatures. An oath administered with no instrument in front of you has no character of instrument to record, and no signature being notarized. The handbook does not say how to complete those entries for a bare oath. The examples it gives of the type of official act — "acknowledgment, jurat" — are introduced with an e.g., and neither example is a bare oath. Treating a silent requirement as still owed rather than waived is the conservative reading, and it is a reading: mine, not the handbook's. The nearest thing the handbook does supply is written for documents rather than for oaths — where the notary cannot identify the type of document, it requires an entry to that effect in the journal — and it is quoted in full under Language below. The entry requirements that do have official answers are set out in California Notary Journal Requirements.

The journal is not optional record-keeping. Under Government Code section 8228.1(a), a notary who "willfully fails to perform any duty required of a notary public under Section 8206" is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Identity and language still apply

Identity. The journal statute names oath-takers explicitly alongside acknowledgers: the entry must record "[a] statement as to whether the identity of a person making an acknowledgment or taking an oath or affirmation was based on satisfactory evidence." For a jurat, section 8202(a) requires you to "determine, from satisfactory evidence as described in Section 1185 of the Civil Code, that the affiant is the person executing the document." What counts as satisfactory evidence is one standard across notarial practice, and it is set out in How to Identify a Signer in California.

Language. The rule about the document's language and the rule about the signer's language run in opposite directions, and the handbook states both in its Foreign Language paragraph — with two mandatory duties sitting between them that a short quotation drops. Here it is whole:

A notary public can notarize a signature on a document in a foreign language with which the notary public is not familiar, since a notary public's function only relates to the signature and not the content of the document. The notary public should be able to identify the type of document being notarized for entry in the notary public's journal. If unable to identify the type of document, the notary public must make an entry to that effect in the journal (e.g., "a document in a foreign language"). The notary public should be mindful of the completeness of the document and must not notarize the signature on the document if the document appears to be incomplete. The notary public is responsible for completing the acknowledgment or jurat form. When notarizing a signature on a document, a notary public must be able to communicate with the customer for the signer either to swear to or affirm the contents of the affidavit or to acknowledge the execution of the document. An interpreter should not be used, as vital information could be lost in the translation. If a notary public is unable to communicate with a customer, the customer should be referred to a notary public who speaks the customer's language.

So you may notarize a document you cannot read — but you should still be able to identify the type of document for the journal entry, you must make an entry to that effect where you cannot, and you must not notarize the signature where the document appears to be incomplete. That last pair are duties, not advice, and the language point does not displace them.

Note also where the communication rule begins. It opens "When notarizing a signature on a document", and the two things it goes on to name are swearing to or affirming the contents of an affidavit and acknowledging the execution of a document. Whether it reaches an oath administered with no document in front of you at all is not something the handbook says, and this page does not extend it there — the same treatment given to the remote-deposition question above. It is also the nearest analogue the handbook offers to the bare-oath journal problem two sections up: where the notary cannot identify the type of document, the answer is an entry saying so, and the handbook writes that answer for documents rather than for oaths.

Where. Statewide, on the handbook's own words: "A notary public can provide notarial services throughout the State of California."

What the handbook does not say

The silences matter more than usual here, because the source is thin. Each of the following was searched for in the January 2026 handbook and the code sections it reproduces, and came back empty.

• Any procedure for taking a deposition. No notice, attendance, transcription, objection or transcript-certification rules. The Civil Discovery Act is cited and not reproduced.
• What the certificate to the deposition contains. Section 8211(c) prices it at seven dollars. Nothing describes it.
• The maximum for an oath administered without a jurat. Section 8211(b) prices the two together in a single subdivision — "For administering an oath or affirmation to one person and executing the jurat, including the seal, the sum of fifteen dollars ($15)." The handbook's summary table instead shows an Oaths/Affirmations row and a Jurats row. Where those two presentations part company is worked through in the fee guide; what neither settles on its face is the ceiling for an oath with no jurat attached to it.
• Anything about a deposition taken remotely, from the notary's side. The remote sentence in section 2093(b)(2) extends the certified-shorthand-reporter subdivision. The handbook does state the physical-appearance rule for notarial acts generally — "California law requires a person to physically appear before the notary public to perform a notarial act" — and says remote online notarization is not authorized under current law. What it does not do is address a deposition, or a witness appearing by video, anywhere.
• A certificate form for a standalone oath. The handbook prints statutory forms for the certificate of acknowledgment, the jurat and the proof of execution by a subscribing witness. It prints none for an oath administered without a document.
• How to journal an oath taken with no instrument and no signature. Discussed above.
• Any provision equating an oath and an affirmation by definition. None is printed. Penal Code section 118(a) is reproduced, and its second clause reaches penalty-of-perjury declarants on its own terms — which narrows the question rather than answering it. Worked through above.
• Any rule about when you may decline a request. Section 8205(a) says the duties arise "when requested", and section 8214.1(d) makes failure to discharge duties a ground for discipline. The handbook draws no line between them, and neither does this page.

One further silence is worth naming, because it sets the tone for the whole subject. California notaries are prohibited from performing any duties that may be construed as the practice of law, and the handbook counts among those acts "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." A deposition is a step in litigation. Answering a party's question about what their deposition requires is not a notarial act, and the handbook's instruction when asked to perform such tasks is to "decline and refer the requester to an attorney."

The grounds for discipline the handbook summarises are themselves expressly open-ended — "These reasons include but are not limited to" — so no list on this page, the one above included, should be read as complete.

Official sources

• California Notary Public Handbook — www.sos.ca.gov/notary
• Government Code section 8205, the duties of a notary public, together with sections 8202, 8206, 8211, 8213, 8214.1, 8214.15, 8224, 8224.1 and 8228.1 — all reproduced in the handbook
• Code of Civil Procedure sections 2093 and 2094, the power to administer oaths and the form of oath to a witness, and Penal Code section 118, which defines perjury — all reproduced in the handbook
• Notary Public Disciplinary Guidelines — the Secretary of State's guidelines for reviewing applications, investigating alleged violations and implementing administrative actions, available on the Secretary of State's website or mailed on request (Government Code section 8220)
• Secretary of State, Notary Public Section — Business Programs Division, P.O. Box 942877, Sacramento, California 94277-0001; (916) 653-3595