Louisiana remote online notary: the state rule and your options

Mixing the labels into one “is video legal in Louisiana?” checkout is how a New Orleans owner pays $25 and still has a notary who never registered, or a document that had to be an authentic act. Louisiana’s remote path is legal. It is not automatic on the day the commission arrives. It is also not a substitute for the civil-law form the desk asked for.

• Remote online notarization is an instrument executed before a notary by communication technology that meets the standards adopted under the chapter. R.S. 35:622. Communication technology means an electronic device or process that allows substantially simultaneous communication by sight and sound. R.S. 35:627: the certificate must say it is a remote online notarial act, the notary’s electronic signature is attached, and the notary digitally signs so a later change is evident.
• An authentic act is a writing executed before a notary, or another officer authorized to do that job, in the presence of two witnesses, and signed by each party, each witness, and each notary. Civil Code Article 1833. The typed or hand-printed name goes under each signature. The writing need not happen at one time or in one place, if each party signs before a notary and two witnesses. R.S. 35:623(C): remote online notarization may not be used to execute that authentic act.

R.S. 35:623(A) is the general rule for everything else. A remote online notarial act that meets R.S. 35:625 through 627 satisfies a law that says a party must appear before a notary when the instrument is executed. The rest of the act still has to follow the other laws for that kind of document. Subsection D says the chapter supplements the Louisiana Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, R.S. 9:2601 et seq. It does not repeal that act.

Two limits sit on top of that general rule. Read them before you buy a video session.

First, R.S. 35:623(B). These instruments shall not be executed by remote online notarization: (1) a testament, which is a will, or a codicil, which is a change to a will; (2) a trust instrument or an acknowledgment of a trust; (3) a donation inter vivos, which is a gift made while the giver is alive; (4) a matrimonial agreement, which is a contract about property in a marriage, or an acknowledgment of that agreement; (5) an act that modifies, waives, or extinguishes an obligation of final spousal support, or an acknowledgment of that act. Final spousal support is the support one spouse pays the other after a divorce is final. Those five are not “try video and see.” The statute says they shall not be executed that way.

Second, R.S. 35:623(C). Remote online notarization may not be used to execute an authentic act as Civil Code Article 1833 defines it. Except for the five instruments in subsection B, an act that fails to be authentic only because it used remote online notarization may still be valid as an act under private signature or an acknowledged act. That is a rescue for form. It is not permission to put a will, a trust, a donation, a matrimonial agreement, or a final spousal-support act on a video call. If the desk printed “authentic act,” video cannot supply that form. That job is a mobile notary or a walk-in.

The registration gate is R.S. 35:625.1, not the older section that expired. R.S. 35:625 said any regularly commissioned Louisiana notary was authorized to perform remote online notarization, and it said that section ceased to be effective on February 1, 2022. The live page also carries a note that section 625 was effective upon enactment of a federal bill. We do not use that older section as today’s permission. R.S. 35:625.1, Acts 2020, No. 254, §6, effective February 1, 2022, says only a regularly commissioned notary who holds a valid Louisiana commission may be authorized by the Secretary of State. The notary submits an application in the format the Secretary prescribes, completes any course the Secretary requires, and satisfies the Secretary’s rules. The authority continues as long as the notary is validly commissioned and the Secretary has not revoked the remote authority.

The consumer checklist we retrieved is the RON requirements page. Because of the Remote Online Notarization Act, R.S. 35:621 et seq., Louisiana began to allow notaries to register on February 1, 2022. The person must be a duly appointed and commissioned notary, residing in Louisiana, who holds a current commission. Then: complete an online instruction course and pass a quiz, and keep a PDF of the certificate; pick the technology and select a provider, including from the Secretary’s list, and more than one provider is allowed; complete registration in the online notary account and upload the quiz certificate as a PDF. The one-time filing fee is $100. It is unrelated to any fee the provider charges. The notary and the provider then arrange the technology and pay the provider directly. After approval, the notary’s record shows the remote authority. The page lists the office at 8585 Archives Ave., Baton Rouge, LA 70809, mail at P.O. Box 94125, Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9125, and phone 225.922.2880. The course link on that page is the Secretary’s online instruction course. We did not read a second dollar figure on that course page.

The technology providers registry is the list the requirements page points to. The page we retrieved says it is the notary’s job to verify the technology, the qualifications, the usability, and the fees of any provider. The provider names on that page sit in a frame we did not read as a catalog. Louisiana does not publish that provider list on the page we read. A company on a checkout screen is not, by itself, proof that this Louisiana notary selected that provider and finished the $100 registration.

A banner on Secretary of State pages says Commercial Division fees increase on October 1, 2026, under Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Session. That sentence is about the Commercial Division. We did not read it as a change to the $100 remote-registration fee. The dollar we cite for registration is the $100 the RON requirements page still prints.

The underlying commission is older and stricter than a checkout screen. R.S. 35:191: a person may be appointed a notary in the parish where the person resides, and in one other parish where the person maintains an office. The applicant must be a resident citizen or alien of this state, at least 18, able to read, write, and speak English, and hold a high school diploma or an approved equivalent. A resident seeking appointment in the parish of residence must be a registered voter of that parish. The Secretary of State charges $35 to file and process the application. The applicant takes a written examination administered by the Secretary of State. The examination fee is paid for each exam. The statute text we read does not print that exam dollar. The exam is dispensed with if the applicant has been admitted to practice law in this state or already holds a valid Louisiana notarial commission. Later subsections of R.S. 35:191 let one commission cover listed groups of parishes, including Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, and St. Bernard together, and other named groups. We will not turn those subsections into a parish map. The video rule stays R.S. 35:626(A) and R.S. 35:10: the notarial act is made inside the notary’s jurisdictional limits, and for a remote session the notary must be physically in a parish where that notary already has power.

The commission is kept up with an annual report, not with a second remote card each year. R.S. 35:202: a regularly commissioned non-attorney notary files an annual report with the Secretary of State on or before the anniversary of the commission, with the filing fee the Secretary sets under R.S. 35:191.2. The statute does not print that annual dollar. A late fee shall not exceed $50. If the completed report is not filed within sixty days after the due date, the commission is automatically suspended until a current report is filed and the accrued fees and late charges are paid, for a period not to exceed three years. R.S. 35:625.1(C) ties remote authority to a valid commission. A suspended commission is not a working remote notary.

R.S. 35:71 is the bond, and it changed in 2026. Unless another law says otherwise, the notary posts and maintains bond, with good and solvent security, of $50,000, conditioned on faithful performance. The bond is filed with the Secretary of State. It is renewed every five years, except a personal-surety bond, which is renewed when that surety dies. A qualified notary other than a licensed attorney who fails to renew or file the bond on time is automatically suspended. Acts 2025, No. 258, §1, effective February 1, 2026. We cite the current section. We do not cite an older $10,000 figure as today’s bond.

A person in Louisiana can still hire an out-of-state video notary for an ordinary document if the receiving desk accepts that act. R.S. 35:5 gives that out-of-state oath, act, or acknowledgment the same effect here. That is signer access. It is not proof that the notary on the screen holds a Louisiana commission or finished the $100 registration. And R.S. 35:6 does not promote that video act into an authentic act. The authentic-act shortcut in 35:6 excludes acts performed by remote online notarization.

Where the act is treated as signed is a separate sentence, and we checked it against the enrolled bill. Before Act 192, R.S. 35:626(B) treated the remote act as executed in any Louisiana parish where any party was physically located. If no party was in Louisiana, it was treated as executed in the parish where the notary was physically located, if the notary had jurisdiction there. Act 192 of 2022 (House Bill 903, Representative Gregory Miller) amended subsection B and added subsection C. The enrolled page says words in struck-through type are deletions and underlined words are additions. We read those marks. The struck words are the old “any party is physically located” place of execution, and the old “if no party was in this state” fallback. What remains, plus the new underlined jurisdiction clause, is this sentence: a remote online notarial act is deemed to be executed in any parish of this state where the notary public is physically located at the time of the remote online notarization if the notary public has jurisdiction in that parish. New subsection C, all underlined, says an action on a contract that is a remote online notarial act may be brought in any parish in which a party was physically located at the time of the notarization. That is a lawsuit venue. It is not a second rule about where the act was signed. The résumé digest of Act 192 describes the same change and states an effective date of August 1, 2022. The live statute page prints that resulting B and the new C, and it cites Acts 2022, No. 192, §1. The live page and the enrolled act agree. We do not describe the deleted party-parish rule as current law.

The witness rule is why a video session can still turn into a house call. R.S. 35:626(A): a witness to a remote online notarial act shall be in the physical presence of the party. The witness can be on the video with the signer, away from the notary. The witness cannot sit in a third place. R.S. 35:627(A) still makes the notary verify the identity of a party or a witness who is appearing remotely, by the video and by personal knowledge or by the credential steps below. “Appearing remotely” in that sentence means remote from the notary. It does not cancel the rule that the witness sits with the party.

The ID check is not a courtesy box. R.S. 35:627(A): the notary verifies identity through the communication technology and by one of two means. The first is the notary’s personal knowledge of the individual. The second is all three of these: remote presentation of a government-issued identification credential, such as a passport or driver’s license, that contains the signature and a photograph; credential analysis; and identity proofing. R.S. 35:622 defines those words. Credential analysis is a review of public and proprietary data sources to test whether the credential is authentic. Identity proofing is either dynamic knowledge-based authentication, such as a review of personal information from public or proprietary data sources, or analysis of biometric data, such as facial recognition, voiceprint analysis, or fingerprint analysis. If those steps cannot finish, a mobile notary or a walk-in is the product that can finish.

The session file is part of the act. R.S. 35:629: the notary maintains an electronic copy, capable of being printed, of each remote online notarial act for at least ten years after the date of the notarization. The notary also maintains an audio and video recording of each remote online notarization for at least ten years after that date. The notary takes reasonable steps to secure those records from corruption, loss, destruction, and unauthorized interception or alteration. A custodian may keep the electronic records if the notary has unrestricted access and the custodian meets any standards the Secretary of State sets. We read one ten-year clock for the copy and one ten-year clock for the recording. We did not read a shorter clock in that section.

R.S. 35:628 is the notary’s duty during the session. The technology must be secure from unauthorized interception. The electronic record in front of the notary must be the same record the party signed or adopted. R.S. 35:630: the provisions of the chapter may not be varied by agreement. A checkout screen cannot waive the authentic-act bar, the witness rule, or the ten-year record.

R.S. 35:624 tells the Secretary of State to adopt standards by rule, with a stakeholder committee that includes land-title, notary, banker, clerk, bar, and law-institute representatives, and to adopt those rules prior to February 1, 2022. We did not retrieve the administrative-code text. The consumer steps we quote are the statute and the Secretary of State pages above.

NNA’s country page says that, in states that cap remote fees, $25 is the most common maximum. We did not read a remote-act dollar cap in the Louisiana chapter. We will not import that $25 figure as a Louisiana legal maximum. A company sticker near $25 is the company’s price. It is not R.S. 35:623, and it is not the $100 registration fee.