South Carolina video notary vs mobile: in-person electronic notarization is live after a Secretary of State registration; a South Carolina notary still has to be with the signer, and remote online notarization is not enacted

This page is a notary scorecard. It is not a mailbox directory. Form 1583 is the Postal Service form you sign so a mailbox store can receive your mail. It appears here because mailbox signup is a common reason a South Carolina owner needs a notary this week. The form is the use-case. The mailbox store is someone else’s product.

This page is not legal advice. An in-state commission is a notary license from South Carolina. The South Carolina Electronic Notary Public Act, 2021 Act No. 85 (S.631), is Title 26, Chapter 2. A South Carolina notary may register with the Secretary of State for an electronic notarization only if the signer appears in person. Section 26-1-5(13) defines that appearance as physical presence. The Secretary of State’s November 30, 2022 notice says South Carolina has not legalized remote notarization. A bank, a commercial mailbox (CMRA), or the Postal Service still decides whether this packet may be remote.

The South Carolina grade that is not a company letter

We grade the state rule first. Remote online notarization (RON) is a video session with a notary. A company cannot turn a South Carolina commission into that video job. The electronic registration South Carolina did open is in-person electronic notarization (IPEN). The signer is still in the room.

An electronic seal, with the signer still in the room

Mixing “electronic” and “video” into one checkout is how a Charleston owner pays $25 and still has the wrong act. South Carolina’s electronic law is not a webcam product. It is also not automatic on the day the commission arrives.

• In-person electronic notarization (IPEN) is an electronic seal and an electronic signature while the signer is physically with the notary. The SOS notaries page uses that IPEN label. § 26-2-5: an electronic notarial act is an official act by an electronic notary that involves electronic documents. § 26-2-40 lists the acts that may be done electronically: acknowledgments, oaths and affirmations, attestations and jurats, signature witnessing, verifications of fact, a certificate that a tangible copy matches the electronic record, and other acts the law already allows. § 26-2-50 still requires the principal to appear in person.
• Remote online notarization (RON) is the video job. The notary and the signer are in different places. The November 30, 2022 SOS notice says electronic notarization differs from remote notarization because the notary must be in the physical presence of the signer, and that South Carolina has not legalized remote notarization. NNA groups South Carolina with Georgia and Mississippi as states that have not passed a law authorizing their own notaries to perform RON. NASS reports that 47 states plus Washington, D.C. have a remote e-notarization law. South Carolina is not in that enacted-remote group. Those country pages are context. The SOS notice and Title 26 are the South Carolina rule.

§ 26-2-20 is the gate for the electronic seal. A notary already commissioned in this state may become an electronic notary. Before any electronic act, the notary registers with the Secretary of State, names the technology, and pays a fifty-dollar registration fee. The registration lasts while the current commission remains valid, unless it is terminated under § 26-2-140. § 26-2-30: before performing electronic acts, take a course the Secretary approves and pass an exam on that course. Regulation 113-400, in Chapter 113, Article 4, says the same registration step: register before performing notarial acts electronically, and the electronic term follows § 26-2-20(B). The SOS notaries page says online registration is open. The notary watches an educational video, finishes the test, picks an approved technology vendor, and can print the electronic notary certificate. That portal is a signup for IPEN. It is not a remote-online commission.

We did not retrieve a public named list of approved electronic-notary vendors on the SOS notaries page. § 26-2-120: a person who wants to provide an electronic notarization system to South Carolina electronic notaries files a registration with the Secretary of State. The SOS page tells solution providers to write to it@sos.sc.gov. We will not invent which companies are on that list this month. Check the live SOS page before you tell a South Carolina notary which software the state has approved.

The ordinary presence rule is older than the electronic act, and it still applies. § 26-2-10: Chapters 1 and 3 apply unless they directly conflict with Chapter 2. § 26-1-5(13): “personal appearance” and “appear in person before a notary” mean the individual and the notary are in the physical presence of one another. § 26-1-90(C)(1): a notary may not perform a notarial act if the principal is not in the notary’s presence. An acknowledgment under § 26-1-5(1) includes the individual signing while in that physical presence, with the notary watching. Those sentences are why a South Carolina electronic seal is still an in-the-room product.

§ 26-2-90: the electronic notary keeps an electronic journal of each electronic act. The entry includes the date and time, the type of act, a description of the record, the principal’s name, how identity was proved, the address if the act was not at the notary’s business address, the system used, and the fee. Do not put a Social Security number in the journal. The notary may not hand the journal to an employer when the job ends. We did not read a fixed year count, such as ten years, in that section. This is a journal for an in-room electronic act. It is not a video-recording rule, because the statute we read does not create a video session.

§ 26-2-70: the maximum fee for an electronic notarial act is ten dollars per signature, for the acts listed there. The notary may charge less or waive the fee. A travel fee is allowed only if both sides agree before the trip, and the notary explains that the travel fee is separate and is not set by law. A notary who charges must show an English fee schedule. § 26-1-100 is the ordinary, non-electronic cap: five dollars per signature for an acknowledgment, five dollars per person for an oath or affirmation without a signature, five dollars per signature for a jurat or for signature witnessing, and five dollars per certificate for a verification of fact. House bills in the 2025–2026 session would raise that ordinary cap to ten dollars. The bill text we read was still in committee. It is not the live fee.

Two limits sit on the electronic chapter itself. § 26-2-200: this chapter does not apply to wills and trusts in South Carolina. Do not buy an electronic-seal session for a will and treat Chapter 2 as the authority. § 26-2-210: nothing in the electronic chapter removes South Carolina’s rule that a licensed South Carolina attorney supervises a closing. If the desk is a closing, ask that attorney. We will not invent a video closing.

The commission comes from the Governor and the Secretary of State

South Carolina does not issue this commission through a county clerk’s notary desk. § 26-1-10: the Governor may appoint qualified electors as notaries, for a term of ten years. The commission is issued, and the record of the appointment is filed in the Office of the Secretary of State. § 26-1-30: the fee for issuance or renewal is twenty-five dollars, collected by the Secretary of State. The SOS notaries page: you must be a registered voter, and the application goes to the county legislative delegation, or to the House of Representatives if the county has no delegation office. § 26-1-20 is the endorsement rule for that delegation. § 26-1-40: the notary takes the constitutional oath, and a certified copy is recorded with the Secretary of State. § 26-1-50: within fifteen days after the commission, exhibit it to the clerk of court in the county where the notary lives, and the clerk enrolls it. That clerk step is enrollment. It is not the office that decides whether a video session is legal.

§ 26-1-80: the jurisdiction of notaries public extends throughout the state. The 2023 Notary Public Reference Manual on the SOS site says a South Carolina notary’s work stays inside South Carolina’s borders. A document headed for another state may be notarized here if the notarization itself happens in South Carolina. That manual is a reference. Title 26 is the statute.

What actually needs a notary on a South Carolina LLC / bank stack

A South Carolina limited liability company is formed by delivering articles of organization to the Secretary of State. S.C. Code § 33-44-202. § 33-44-203 lists what the articles must say: the name, the designated office, the agent for service, each organizer’s name and address, whether it is a term company, whether managers manage it, and whether a member is liable for debts under § 33-44-303(c). The domestic articles form we retrieved, Form F0006, revised August 2016, says each organizer listed must sign. We did not read a notarization requirement in § 33-44-203 or on that form. Confirm the live form on the SOS business filings site. People still show up asking for a notary because a bank, a processor, a landlord, or a mailbox asked for a sworn statement on a different document that sits next to the LLC.

We do not publish a bank-by-bank or county-by-county “accepts video” list we have not read on that desk’s page this month. If you need the operating address so a bank will open the account, that is a different product. It is not this site’s directory.

Open all night versus booked, in this state

If the notary must hold a South Carolina commission, you are shopping store hours, a booked house call, or an in-room electronic seal. That is the F on in-state RON showing up as a calendar. IPEN does not fix the clock. The signer still has to be with the notary. If the receiving desk will take a video act from a notary licensed in a state that already lets its notaries perform RON, then all-night service is a real option. Company availability letters live on the directory, once.

The ID check on a video call is not a courtesy. Companies print an ID scan and a quiz from a credit file. Signers with a thin U.S. credit file, a new tax ID, or a foreign passport fail that quiz more often than ads admit. That is when a mobile notary or a walk-in stops being the old way and becomes the product that can finish. On a South Carolina electronic act, identity is still personal knowledge or satisfactory evidence under Chapter 1. § 26-2-50. There is no remote quiz in the statute we read, because the signer is in the room.

The five dollars in § 26-1-100, and the ten dollars in § 26-2-70, are South Carolina notary-act caps. They are not a promise that a video company’s checkout stops there, and they are not a UPS price. The consumer starting prices we cite on company cards, about $25 a session, are still the official pages retrieved August 2026.

Company letters live on the directory

Availability, identity check, and session-record letters for Proof/Notarize, NotaryLive, OneNotary, BlueNotary, mobile, and walk-in are on the directory, once. This page keeps the South Carolina rule and the document table. Official starting prices we cite: NotaryLive about $25 per session; Proof/Notarize about $25 for the first stamp and $15 for each extra stamp; OneNotary online about $25 and mobile from about $80. We do not invent a session price for BlueNotary. Independent South Carolina mobiles are not that OneNotary sticker. Counters set their own prices. Those company prices are for a video session with a notary commissioned where RON is allowed. They are not a South Carolina IPEN fee.

Form 1583 as a South Carolina use-case, without becoming a mailbox review

USPS will not let a commercial mailbox (CMRA) hand you mail until PS Form 1583 (June 2024) is complete. Form 1583 is the Postal Service form you sign so that store can receive your mail. You sign in person with the store (or an authorized employee) or with a notary public. The form’s note allows a live video call. A South Carolina signer can use an out-of-state remote notary for that video note. A South Carolina-commissioned notary cannot finish that video session. An electronic seal from a South Carolina notary still requires the signer in the room. That is IPEN. It is not the form’s video note. The same split, a local notary who cannot do the video and a signer who may still use an out-of-state video notary, is why people also read Georgia. South Carolina is not that page. Georgia did not open the in-room electronic registration South Carolina runs under Act No. 85.

What we will not do here: grade mailbox brands, pick a Charleston, Columbia, or Greenville storefront, or explain store flags. Those are mailbox questions. The notary question is: did the session match the form (U.S.-licensed notary, two IDs, home address matching the address ID), and will the store accept that session? Details live on Form 1583 notarization.

A sequence that usually wastes less money

1. Read the receiving desk’s current instruction. If they printed “South Carolina notary” or “in person,” do not buy a video session to argue with them.
2. If they accept an out-of-state video notary, use a company whose notaries are licensed in states that already allow RON. § 26-3-20 is the recognition statute for an act performed outside South Carolina. NASS and NNA are the country sources. The company’s live notary pool is the day-of fact. Do not assume a South Carolina commission can appear on that call.
3. If they want an electronic seal and the signer can be in the room with a registered South Carolina electronic notary, that is IPEN under §§ 26-2-20 and 26-2-50. It is not a midnight video checkout.
4. Budget the extras from the official page, extra stamp, extra signer, witness, before you upload a six-signature packet at the $25 sticker. The five dollars and the ten dollars in Title 26 are South Carolina act caps, not that checkout.
5. If the ID quiz fails twice, stop retrying overnight. Switch to a mobile notary or a walk-in. NotaryLive’s own FAQ describes a Personal Verifier path. That is their product, not a universal escape hatch.
6. Keep the session confirmation. The value of an out-of-state video session in a later dispute is the recording that other state’s law requires. The value of a walk-in is the South Carolina act the desk already said it wanted.