Utah remote online notary: the state rule and your options

Mixing the labels into one “is video legal in Utah?” checkout is how a Salt Lake City owner pays $25 and still has a notary who never got remote certification. Utah’s remote path is not automatic on the day the commission arrives. It is also not wet ink on a video call.

• Remote online notarization is a notarial act by a remote notary for a person who is not in the same room. Utah Code § 46-1-2: a remote notary is a person with an active certification under § 46-1-3.5. “In the presence of the notary” means physically close enough to see and hear, or, for a remote notary, communicating by sight and sound at the same time under the rules in § 46-1-3.7. § 46-1-6.5: the certificate must state that the notarization was performed remotely.
• A traditional notarial act is the ink act from a Utah notary public who does not hold that remote certification. § 46-1-3: the commission runs four years and covers acts in any part of this state. Except through a remote notarization, that notary may not perform a notarial act for a person who is outside Utah. The commission is not a renewal product. After it expires, the person applies again.

§ 46-1-3.5 is the gate. A commissioned notary, or a person applying for a commission, may apply to the lieutenant governor for a remote notary certification. The application uses the name on the commission, includes an email address, and includes an agreement to follow the chapter and the rules under § 46-1-3.7. The lieutenant governor may set the application fee under § 63J-1-504. The statute does not print the dollar. The dollar we retrieved is on the remote application page: $50, paid after the office reviews the documents, and separate from the initial notary application fee.

That same page is the consumer checklist we retrieved. You must already be a commissioned Utah Notary Public. You must reapply for remote certification each time you renew the Notary Public commission. You must be hired or contracted by an approved remote-notary vendor before you apply. The vendor provides the electronic signature and the electronic seal. Every electronic seal must have a timestamp or a digital tracking method. You attach a notarized Remote Online Notary Oath and Affirmation, the $10,000 bond or the bond rider, and a PDF of the electronic signature and seal. After document review, the office emails instructions to pay $50. Then the commission is marked “remote notary.”

The bond is two sentences that have to be read together. The application page says coverage must increase to $10,000. Option 1 is a rider or adjustment of the current bond to $10,000. Option 2 is an additional separate $5,000 bond tied to the original commission date. Both bonds are renewed when the commission is renewed. Utah Code § 46-1-4: a commission is not effective until the constitutional oath is filed and a $5,000 licensed-surety bond is approved, running four years from the commission’s effective date to its expiration. A remote certification is not effective until additional $5,000 bond coverage is approved, running from the certification’s effective date to the commission’s expiration. Five thousand plus five thousand is the $10,000 coverage the office describes. We cite both. Utah does not publish a third bond figure.

The qualifications page is the traditional path that has to happen first. You must be at least 18, a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and you must reside or be employed in Utah for at least 30 days and keep that residency or employment. You must read, write, and understand English. You pass an online exam. A background check has been mandatory since November 1, 2019. The test administration fee printed on that page is $95, nonrefundable, paid immediately after the test. A failed test costs an additional $40 each time, for 30 days from the first test. You obtain a $5,000 notarial bond in the name on the application and sign as principal. You have the Oath of Office notarized. The office does not sell the seal or the journal. Those come from a third party. The study guide linked from that page is the Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook file dated May 16, 2022, in the filename. We do not quote fee dollars from that older file. The live qualifications page and current code are the fee sources.

The Notary Office homepage says the State of Utah does not have a provision for notaries public to renew. You use the same account to update information and take the test again. A name change needs a new account. Read that with the remote page. “Renew” on the remote page means the new commission. The remote certification does not carry itself forward. You apply for it again.

A person in Utah can still hire an out-of-state video notary for an ordinary document if the receiving desk accepts that act. Utah Code § 57-2a-3 gives that out-of-state act the same effect here. That is signer access. It is not proof that the notary on the screen holds a Utah commission or finished remote certification.

The notary must sit in Utah. § 46-1-3.6: a remote notary may perform a remote notarization only if the remote notary is physically located in this state. If the notary does not personally know the signer, the session uses a device that lets them see and hear each other at the same time, under the § 46-1-3.7 rules, and the notary gets an image of an identification credential described in § 46-1-2. The remote notary creates an electronic recording and stores it. The official text we read says that storage follows Sections 46-1-41.1 and 46-1-15. The chapter index we read lists § 46-1-14.1 and does not list § 46-1-41.1. We quote the cross-reference as printed. The retention clock we rely on is § 46-1-13: ten years. A lawful remote notarization satisfies a Utah law that requires the person to appear in person or be in the presence of the notary.

The ID check is not a courtesy box. S.B. 139, effective May 6, 2026, and the current definition in § 46-1-2, require satisfactory evidence. That can be an unexpired personal identification with a photo, a signature, and a physical description, issued by the United States, a state, the District of Columbia, a territory or possession, a federally recognized tribal government, or a foreign government. It can be an unexpired passport of any nation. It can be the oath or affirmation of a credible individual the notary personally knows, who personally knows the signer. It can also be the oath or affirmation of a credible individual who personally knows the signer, whom the notary does not personally know, if that witness shows a qualifying identification. A remote act also needs secondary authentication of the signer, or of that unknown credible individual. Secondary authentication is a third-party check under the § 46-1-3.7 rules, by dynamic knowledge-based authentication or by biometric analysis, such as face, voiceprint, or fingerprint. A driving privilege card under § 53-3-207 is not satisfactory evidence. The April 15, 2026 announcement says the same two identity points in plain language: unexpired identification, and a credible witness who personally knows the signer and can give a sworn affidavit when the signer’s identification is not used.

We read Utah Admin. Code R623-100 in the National Notary Association’s Utah law compilation. We did not retrieve a current copy from the state’s rules host. The rule text we read says a solution provider is a third-party vendor the lieutenant governor has approved. The certification application adds the commission number, the expiration date, the solution-provider name, a copy of the electronic seal and signature, and a compliance statement. A remote notary must use an approved solution vendor. Performing remote acts without a current remote certificate risks suspension or revocation. Suspension of the traditional commission suspends the remote certification. The rule’s identity steps include credential analysis by a third-party tool and a human visual comparison. If the credential cannot be validated, or the features cannot be matched, the notary does not complete the act and does not retry with that credential. The knowledge-based quiz in that text is five multiple-choice questions, five answer choices, and 80 percent correct within two minutes, with up to two additional quizzes within 48 hours and 40 percent of the prior questions replaced. The audio and video must be continuous and synchronous. The notary may stop if the quality is inadequate. Transaction documents are not recorded in the video. The electronic journal entry in that rule includes the principal’s IP address. The solution provider must be approved before use and must check the lieutenant governor’s registry that the remote notary is active at login. The certificate must state that the principal appeared remotely using audio and video. The rule text we read still points at an older subsection number for identification types. The current statute puts satisfactory evidence in § 46-1-2. We cite the statute’s current numbering for identity, and the rule for the vendor, quiz, and audio-video steps.

§ 46-1-3.7 is the rulemaking section. The catchline is “Rulemaking authority for electronic notarization.” The director of elections in the Office of the Lieutenant Governor may make rules on the software and hardware, the data sources used to confirm identity, dynamic knowledge-based authentication or biometric analysis, and electronic seals. The director must review national notary standards. “Electronic notarization” in § 46-1-2 is broader than the video product. It includes a remote notarization, and it also includes an electronic-format notarization of a document that may be recorded electronically under § 17-71-402 and that follows the § 46-1-3.7 rules. We did not retrieve § 17-71-402. We will not describe a same-room electronic product we have not read.

The session file and the journal are part of the act, and S.B. 139 changed who must keep the journal. The Lieutenant Governor’s April 15, 2026 announcement says S.B. 139 was signed into law and is effective May 6, 2026. A notary who receives a commission on or after that date must keep a journal. That includes a notary who renews after May 6, 2026. A notary whose current commission started before that date is not required to keep a journal until the notary renews after May 6, 2026. A notary who chose to keep a journal before that date is still subject to retention and inspection. The announcement also says unauthorized use or possession of a notary seal or journal is a crime, and it describes a journal inspection process.

The statute is more specific than that announcement, and the two have to stay separate. Utah Code § 46-1-13, as amended by Chapter 56, 2026: a notary who is not in the new-commission group may keep a chronological, permanently bound, numbered journal. If that notary does keep one, the retention and employer rules apply. A remote notary in that same pre-May 6 group shall keep a secure electronic journal of each remote notarization. So a current commission can skip a general journal until renewal, and a remote notary on that current commission still keeps the electronic journal of each remote act. A notary who receives a commission, or a new commission, on or after May 6, 2026, shall keep a physical journal of each non-remote act and a secure electronic journal of each remote notarization. The section says that duty is “in accordance with Section 46-1-14.” § 46-1-14 says it applies only to the notaries described in § 46-1-13(1). § 46-1-14.1, enacted by the same Chapter 56, applies to a commission or new commission on or after May 6, 2026, and it lists the entry fields. We cite both sentences. We do not silently pick one.

Retention is ten years, and we found that number in the statute and in the Lieutenant Governor’s journal handout. § 46-1-13: keep a journal for 10 years after the day of the last notarial act recorded in it, even if you are no longer a notary, and then destroy it by shredding or a similar method. A remote notary, or the custodian the statute allows, maintains the electronic journal and each electronic recording for 10 years after the last act recorded in the journal, and then destroys them, including backups, so the data cannot be retrieved. The journal handout says the same 10-year clock and says only remote online notarizations go in an electronic journal. An attorney, a law firm, or a title agency does not have to journal employment acts, and those records are not subject to the inspection the chapter otherwise describes. § 46-1-13(4) is that exemption. The National Notary Association’s S.B. 139 law update lists the bill as Chapter 56, signed March 17, 2026, effective May 6, 2026, and it confirms the 10-year clock. One sentence in that summary names the wrong inspecting officer. The statute says the lieutenant governor. We use the statute.

§ 46-1-15 is the inspection process the announcement names. The notary keeps exclusive custody. A remote journal needs a backup. A custodian may be the employer, or an electronic repository that only the notary can access under a retention agreement. The employer may not require the notary to surrender the journal when employment ends. The lieutenant governor, or a designee, may inspect for compliance or authenticity. An individual may inspect during business hours after giving identity and enough detail to find the entry, and the notary records that inspection. The notary may refuse if there is a reasonable, articulable belief of criminal or harmful intent. A law-enforcement investigation, a subpoena, or a court order is limited to its scope. The biometric or identification-image portion of a remote notarization is not open to that individual inspection unless there is written consent, a court order, or a lieutenant governor request. The journal and the electronic recording are not records under Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act.

§ 46-1-16 is the seal rule that separates the ink act from the video act. An in-person seal uses purple ink. A remote seal is rendered in black. The remote notary keeps the electronic seal and the electronic signature. A vendor may guard the electronic seal, with narrow access, under § 46-1-17. The remote seal and signature are attached so a later change to the certificate or the record is evident. The seal includes the name, “notary public,” “state of Utah,” the commission expiration, the commission number, a facsimile of the great seal, and a rectangular border no larger than one inch by two and one-half inches. On resignation, revocation, or expiration, the notary destroys the seal and, for a remote notary, the coding, disk, certificate, card, software, or password, and certifies that destruction to the lieutenant governor in writing within 10 days. Using, forging, taking, or damaging a signature, certificate, seal, journal, or electronic recording without authority is a class B misdemeanor. The notary notifies law enforcement and the lieutenant governor. § 46-1-17 makes unlawful creation or possession of an electronic seal a class B misdemeanor, with a business exception for providing a lawful seal to a certified remote notary.

§ 46-1-6 is the list of powers: a jurat, an acknowledgment, signature witnessing, copy certification, and an oath or affirmation. The notary may not perform the act if the individual is not in the presence of the notary. Read that with the definition. Presence includes a compliant remote session. It does not include a signature the notary never saw. § 46-1-12 prices the in-person list at $10, in the units above, and prices a remote item at $25. The same section caps a fee for an immigration-status form at $10 per individual per set of forms, and that cap does not apply to a licensed attorney rendering professional services. NNA’s country page says that, in states that cap remote fees, $25 is the most common maximum. Utah’s remote cap is that $25 figure, and it sits above Utah’s own $10 ink figures. A company sticker near $25 can match one remote item. It is not a promise that a six-signature packet stays at $25, and it is not the $10 ink acknowledgment in § 46-1-12.