How to Identify a Signer in California

The statutory certificate of acknowledgment carries a sentence you certify under penalty of perjury, and the paragraph it certifies is about identification. Civil Code section 1189 prints the form, and in it the signer is the person "who proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are subscribed to the within instrument". Directly beneath that paragraph the form has you write: "I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct."

Identification is therefore not the preliminary you get through before the notarization. On an acknowledgment it is most of what the notarization says.

Two civil penalties of ten thousand dollars sit near this, and they are not the same penalty. Civil Code section 1185(b)(1)(B) reaches a notary who fails to obtain the satisfactory evidence a credible witness's oath requires. Civil Code section 1189(a)(4) reaches something else — "A notary public who willfully states as true any material fact that he or she knows to be false shall be subject to a civil penalty not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000)." Both, by their own terms, may be brought by the Secretary of State in an administrative proceeding or by a public prosecutor in superior court.

And the rule that catches careful people is the one about the customer you already know. The handbook puts the question in the voice of the notary who asks it: "My neighbor of 20 years has asked me to notarize a document for her. Because I have known her all these years, do I still need to ask for proof of her identity?"

A. Yes. 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.

This guide sets out what California accepts as satisfactory evidence, in the statute's words: the identification documents and the currency requirement attached to them, the single-credible-witness route and the two-credible-witness route with the conditions that gate both, and the provisions that change the question in particular situations. 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.

Two neighboring questions are answered elsewhere and are not restated here. Which certificate a document needs — and why that choice is not yours to make — is Acknowledgment vs. Jurat. What you write down once you have identified someone is California notary journal requirements.

What "satisfactory evidence" actually means

The standard is set for acknowledgments by Civil Code section 1185(a): "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 write a second standard. It points at the first 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." The handbook's own summary treats the two together: "When completing a certificate of acknowledgment or a jurat, a notary public is required to certify to the identity of the signer of the document", and "Identity is established if the notary public is presented with satisfactory evidence of the signer's identity".

Section 1185(b) then defines the term, and the definition has two halves joined by an "and" rather than a list of options. The first half is a negative condition on your own state of mind: satisfactory evidence means "the absence of information, evidence, or other circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the person making the acknowledgment is not the individual he or she claims to be". The second half is "and any one of the following", followed by the four numbered paragraphs.

Read that structure carefully, because it decides cases that a list of acceptable documents does not. A current California driver's license satisfies the second half. It does nothing about the first. If something in front of you would lead a reasonable person to believe the individual is not who they claim to be, the statute's definition is not met, and the document in the person's hand does not repair it.

The four paragraphs under "any one of the following" are:

1. The oath or affirmation of one credible witness who is personally known to you (section 1185(b)(1)).
2. The oath or affirmation under penalty of perjury of two credible witnesses (section 1185(b)(2)).
3. Reasonable reliance on one of four identification documents (section 1185(b)(3)).
4. Reasonable reliance on one of six further identification documents, each carrying extra content requirements (section 1185(b)(4)).

The handbook's General Information summary groups the same material under the letters A, B and C — "(A) identification documents or (B) the oath of a single credible witness, personally known to the notary public or (C) the oaths of two credible witnesses under penalty of perjury" — and those letters are the handbook's own organization, not subdivisions of the Civil Code. When a form, a class or another article cites "1185(b)(3)", it means the numbered paragraph in the statute.

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.

The identification documents, in the statute's own words

Paragraph (3) opens with a proviso that governs everything under it: reasonable reliance on the presentation of any one of the following, "if the document or other form of identification is current or has been issued within five years". That is a disjunction, and the handbook does not gloss it further — a document that is current qualifies, and so does one that is no longer current but was issued inside the five-year window.

Paragraph (4) carries a longer proviso, and every word of it is a requirement. Reasonable reliance on the presentation of any one of the following, "provided that a document specified in subparagraphs (A) to (F), inclusive, shall either be current or have been issued within five years and shall contain a photograph and description of the person named on it, shall be signed by the person, and shall bear a serial or other identifying number".

Ten documents are enumerated across the two paragraphs. That is a count of what section 1185(b) lists, not a statement that no other provision of California law ever mentions identification for a notarial purpose — one that does is set out further down this page.

A U.S. Passport Card counts. The handbook was asked, and answered with the statutory wording rather than the summary's: "The Civil Code does not differentiate between a Passport Book or a Passport Card, only that it is a passport issued by the Department of State of the United States." Its conclusion is that "a California notary public is permitted to accept U.S. Passport Card as satisfactory evidence of the signer's identity pursuant to Civil Code section 1185(b)(3)(B)." Notice what did the work there. The handbook's General Information list writes subparagraph (B) as "A United States passport"; the answer reaches for the statute's longer phrase and decides the question on it.

Military identification comes with a warning attached. The statute's subparagraph (4)(D) is plain. The handbook's version of the same line is not, and the parenthesis is the handbook's own: "A United States military identification card (caution: current military identification cards might not contain all the required information)." The required information is paragraph (4)'s proviso — photograph, description, signature, serial or other identifying number. A card missing one of them does not become acceptable by being military.

Where the handbook's summary and the statute do not line up

The General Information section paraphrases section 1185(b), and on one point the paraphrase is looser than the law it summarizes. Prefer the statute.

The handbook introduces its second list this way: "There is reasonable reliance on any one of the following forms of identification, provided that it also contains a photograph, description of the person, signature of the person, and an identifying number". Four content requirements, and no currency requirement. The statute's paragraph (4) opens the same proviso with one the summary does not carry at all: the document "shall either be current or have been issued within five years".

The handbook does attach that requirement to its first list, in as many words — "There is reasonable reliance on any one of the following forms of identification, provided it is current or was issued within 5 years". Its word in the second list is "also", which points back at something; what it then spells out is only the four content elements. A notary reading the summary alone could conclude that an out-of-state driver's license issued nine years ago is acceptable so long as it carries a photograph, a description, a signature and a number. Civil Code section 1185(b)(4), reproduced later in the same handbook, says otherwise.

Two smaller wording differences between the summary and the reproduced statute, noted here so that comparing the two texts does not send you looking for a rule that is not there. On the inmate card, the statute says "if the inmate is in custody in prison" and the handbook says "if the inmate is in custody in California state prison". On the state employee card, the statute ends "or by an agency or office of a city, county, or city and county in this state" and the handbook ends "or an agency or office of a city, county, or city and county in California".

The credible-witness routes are a last resort, not a free choice

Describing this wrongly is how a notary walks into the ten-thousand-dollar penalty, so it is worth reading the statute rather than a summary of it.

The oath of a credible witness is not an alternative you may offer a signer who would rather not dig out a passport. Subparagraph (b)(1)(A) requires the witness to swear that the signer has no acceptable identification document at all. In the statute's words, item (iv) of the oath is: "The person making the acknowledgment does not possess any of the identification documents named in paragraphs (3) and (4)." Item (iii) requires the witness to swear to something further — "That it is 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."

A signer who is carrying a current driver's license cannot be identified by a credible witness instead. There is no election between the routes. Paragraph (3) or (4) is the ordinary case; paragraphs (1) and (2) are what remains when the ordinary case is unavailable.

One credible witness

Section 1185(b)(1)(A) sets out the whole of it: "The oath or affirmation of a credible witness personally known to the officer, whose identity is proven to the officer upon presentation of a document satisfying the requirements of paragraph (3) or (4), that the person making the acknowledgment is personally known to the witness and that each of the following are true".

Three requirements are in that clause before the oath even begins:

• The witness is personally known to you. Not to the signer's satisfaction — to yours.
• The witness's own identity is proven by a paragraph (3) or (4) document. Both, not either: you must know the witness and see the witness's identification. The handbook says the same thing from the other direction — "The notary public must establish the identity of the credible witness by the presentation of paper identification documents as set forth above."
• The witness personally knows the signer.

Then the oath. The statute states five things the witness must swear or affirm are true:

Item (v) disqualifies people before you get to their credibility. A witness who stands to gain from the document, or whose name appears in it, cannot serve — however well you know them and however honest they are.

The handbook's rendering of the same five is worth reading alongside the statute, because it translates item (iv) into a broader phrase: "The signer does not possess any of the identification documents authorized by law to establish the signer's identity". Where the two differ, the statute names the paragraphs.

Two credible witnesses

Section 1185(b)(2) is one sentence, and almost all of its content is a cross-reference: "The oath or affirmation under penalty of perjury of two credible witnesses, whose identities are proven to the officer upon the presentation of a document satisfying the requirements of paragraph (3) or (4), that each statement in paragraph (1) is true."

Each statement in paragraph (1) carries every one of the five items above into the two-witness route — including item (iv). The gate does not disappear because you brought a second witness. A signer with an acceptable identification document cannot be identified by two credible witnesses any more than by one.

What changes between the routes is who has to know whom. The handbook states it directly: "The identity of the signer can be established by the oaths of two credible witnesses whom the notary public does not personally know. The notary public first must establish the identities of the two credible witnesses by the presentation of paper identification documents as listed above. Under oath, the credible witnesses must swear or affirm under penalty of perjury to each of the things sworn to or affirmed by a single credible witness, as set forth above."

So the two routes trade one requirement for another. One witness must be personally known to you. Two witnesses need not be — but their oaths are taken under penalty of perjury, and both of them must still be identified by a paragraph (3) or (4) document.

Which produces the thing to notice about both routes at once: you cannot escape the document lists by using witnesses. Every credible witness has to produce one. What the routes relieve is the signer's inability to produce one, never the witness's.

The ten-thousand-dollar penalty, and what it attaches to

Section 1185(b)(1)(B) is the penalty, and it is worth quoting for where it sits as much as for what it says: "A notary public who violates this section by failing to obtain the satisfactory evidence required by subparagraph (A) shall be subject to a civil penalty not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000)." It continues: "An action to impose this civil penalty may be brought by the Secretary of State in an administrative proceeding or a public prosecutor in superior court, and shall be enforced as a civil judgment." And it closes with a reporting duty that keeps the two enforcement tracks connected — "A public prosecutor shall inform the secretary of any civil penalty imposed under this subparagraph."

Note the words required by subparagraph (A). Subparagraph (A) is the single-credible-witness provision, and the penalty is drafted against it. Paragraph (2) — the two-witness route — incorporates paragraph (1)'s statements rather than its penalty, and the handbook nowhere discusses how far subparagraph (B) reaches. What is not in doubt is that the only monetary penalty inside section 1185 is drafted against the credible-witness route, and not against the route where a document is handed across the counter.

What a notary may not accept

The handbook publishes no list of documents a notary must refuse. What it publishes is a definition built as a closed enumeration, and the refusals fall out of that.

• Personal knowledge, standing alone. However long you have known the person. The handbook's answer is quoted at the top of this page, and it ends by tying the point to your book: "Satisfactory evidence of the signer's identity must be provided and noted in the journal."
• Anything not named in paragraph (3) or paragraph (4). Section 1185(b) admits "any one of the following" and then enumerates. A document outside the enumeration is not a basis for the reasonable reliance those paragraphs describe, whatever it proves in ordinary life.
• A document that is neither current nor issued within five years. The proviso is in paragraph (3) in one form and in paragraph (4) in another, and the handbook's summary of paragraph (4) omits it. See the section above.
• A paragraph (4) document missing any of the four content elements — photograph, description, signature, serial or other identifying number. This is the one the handbook flags against military identification cards, and the flag is about content, not about the issuer.
• A credible witness who has a financial interest in the document or is named in it. Item (v) of the oath, and it is stated as a fact the witness must swear to rather than as guidance.
• A credible witness where the signer holds an acceptable document. Item (iv), above.
• A signer who has not physically appeared. Identification is not a document-inspection exercise conducted at a distance. "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." Where remote online notarization stands is covered in the first-appointment guide.
• An identification document offered to prove a subscribing witness. A different rule entirely, and the next section says why.

One more that is not a refusal but decides how the entry reads. Asked whether to record the name from the identification or the name from the document, the handbook answers: "The notary's duty is to establish the identity of the signer by satisfactory evidence. The best practice is to capture the full name as it appears on the driver's license or identification card, including suffixes like Jr., Sr., II, III, etc." It is offered as best practice, in the handbook's own words, rather than as a rule.

Five provisions that change the question

Each of these moves the identification rule off its general setting. Nothing here says they are the only five.

1. A subscribing witness cannot be identified by a document at all. Where the person who signed cannot appear and someone comes on their behalf, Civil Code section 1196 governs: "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." Read the sentence for who presents what. The credible witness produces the identification document; the subscribing witness is proved by that person's oath. A driver's license in the subscribing witness's own hand does not do it. The handbook adds the requirement that closes the circle — 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." The whole proof-of-execution act, including the documents on which it is prohibited outright, is set out in Acknowledgment vs. Jurat.

2. One kind of jurat triggers a birthdate verification. Government Code section 8230 attaches a condition to executing a jurat where the sworn statement sits in a document purporting to identify the affiant and containing a birthdate or age together with a photograph or a fingerprint. The notary "shall require, as a condition to executing the jurat, that the person verify the birthdate or age contained in the statement" by producing one of two things, and those two are a much shorter list than section 1185's. The provision and its two documents are covered in Acknowledgment vs. Jurat.

3. Immigration forms carry an identification permission of their own. This one is easy to miss, because it is printed as an unnumbered paragraph at the end of section 8230 and does not appear in the handbook's Identification section at all: "For the purposes of preparing for submission of forms required by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, and only for such purposes, a notary public may also accept for identification any documents or declarations acceptable to the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service."

Note that the Legislature wrote the limit in twice — For the purposes of preparing for submission of forms at the front, and only for such purposes immediately after — and note that what makes a document acceptable here is a federal agency's standard rather than a California list. The handbook does not discuss this paragraph anywhere else, does not say how it interacts with section 1185, and names an agency that appears nowhere else in it. Its separate Immigration Documents section is about who may help complete the forms and what may be charged, not about identification. Where a provision is this narrow and this undiscussed, the handbook's own general instruction applies: "If in doubt as to whether or not to notarize, the notary public should seek the advice of an attorney."

4. A signature by mark is still identified the ordinary way. When the signer cannot write their name, the first requirement in the handbook's list is unchanged: "The person signing the document by mark must be identified by the notary public by satisfactory evidence." The two people who witness the mark are a different matter — the handbook says a notary "is not required to identify the two persons who witnessed the signing by mark or to have the two witnesses sign the notary public's journal", and then states an exception in its own words for the case where those witnesses are acting as credible witnesses. The journal side of that exception is worked through in California notary journal requirements.

5. Your own identification, on the day you qualify, is a narrower list. Government Code section 8213(a) tells a new appointee taking the oath of office before the county clerk to present "an identification document meeting the requirements of subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (3)" — and then names subparagraphs (A) and (E) of paragraph (4), in a clause the handbook prints as "or of subparagraph (A) or (E) or paragraph (4)" — "to the county clerk as satisfactory evidence of identity."

Four subparagraphs out of the ten: a California DMV license or identification card, a U.S. passport, a consular document or passport from your country of citizenship, or a California state, city or county employee identification card. Out-of-state licenses, military cards, tribal cards and inmate cards are all acceptable for identifying a signer and are not among the subparagraphs that clause names. The rest of the thirty-day oath-and-bond window is in How to Become a Notary in California.

Identifying someone is not the same as understanding them

The handbook's Foreign Language section adds a requirement that sits beside identification and can stop an act that identification would have permitted:

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.

The document's own language is not the problem — a notary "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 signer's language is. A passport that satisfies section 1185(b)(4)(A) tells you who the person is; it does not put you in a position to take their acknowledgment or administer their oath.

After the act: what the statute says about being second-guessed

Three subdivisions at the end of section 1185 describe what happens once the notarization is behind you, and they are the reason a correct identification is worth doing carefully rather than defensively.

• You are presumed to have done it right. "An officer who has taken an acknowledgment pursuant to this section shall be presumed to have operated in accordance with the provisions of law." (Section 1185(c).)
• The person suing carries the burden. "A party who files an action for damages based on the failure of the officer to establish the proper identity of the person making the acknowledgment shall have the burden of proof in establishing the negligence or misconduct of the officer." (Section 1185(d).)
• A perjurer loses what they were after. "A person convicted of perjury under this section shall forfeit any financial interest in the document." (Section 1185(e).)

The presumption is not a substitute for the evidence. It is what the evidence buys you.

Government Code section 8214.1 separately lists the grounds on which the Secretary of State may refuse to appoint, or may revoke or suspend a commission, and among them is subdivision (d), "Failure to discharge fully and faithfully any of the duties or responsibilities required of a notary public." Section 8214.15 attaches money to that subdivision in two bands — a willful violation of (d) "is punishable by a civil penalty not to exceed one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500)", a negligent violation "is punishable by a civil penalty not to exceed seven hundred fifty dollars ($750)". The handbook does not say which subdivision of section 8214.1 an identification failure falls under, and this guide does not either.

What the handbook does not say

Listed so that the silences here are not read as answers.

• Whether a notary may refuse a signer who is properly identified. The handbook states one refusal as a duty — "A notary public may not notarize a document that is incomplete" — and Government Code section 8205(a)(2) says a notary "may not accept any acknowledgment or proof of any instrument that is incomplete." On declining an act for any other reason, it is silent.
• How to resolve a name that does not match. The Q&A above gives a best practice for what to write in the journal. It does not say what to do when the name on the identification and the name on the document are different names rather than different renderings of one.
• Whether identification is required for an oath that is not attached to a document. Section 1185 is written about acknowledgments; section 8202 imports it for jurats. Government Code section 8206(a)(2)(D) requires a journal statement as to whether identity "was based on satisfactory evidence" for a person "making an acknowledgment or taking an oath or affirmation", which is wider than either. The handbook's Identification section addresses itself to "a certificate of acknowledgment or a jurat" and goes no further.
• How far the ten-thousand-dollar penalty in subparagraph (B) reaches. Its text names subparagraph (A). Nothing in the handbook discusses whether it also reaches a failure under paragraph (2), (3) or (4).
• What "personally known" requires. The phrase carries the single-credible-witness route, and the handbook never defines it. Its closest thing to a measure is an illustration: in the worked proof-of-execution scenario, the credible witness qualifies because he "has worked with Nancy Notary for several years." One example is not a test.
• Anything about verifying a document's authenticity. There is no discussion of security features, tamper checks, verification services or what to do with an identification document you suspect is forged. The statute asks for "[r]easonable reliance" on a presentation and does not elaborate.
• A Social Security number, in any role. The phrase does not appear in the handbook at all. It is not among the ten enumerated documents, and nothing in the identification provisions asks for one.

Where a case turns on any of these, the handbook's instruction for doubt is the one quoted above: seek the advice of an attorney. The Secretary of State's Notary Public Section is the other address.

Official sources

Do not take an article's word for a statutory list.

• California Notary Public Handbook — www.sos.ca.gov/notary
• Civil Code section 1185, which defines satisfactory evidence and enumerates both document lists, together with sections 1189, 1196 and Government Code sections 8202, 8213, 8214.1, 8214.15 and 8230 — 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
• Which certificate the document needs — Acknowledgment vs. Jurat
• What you record once you have identified someone — California notary journal requirements