How to Become a Notary in Arizona (2026)

Any Arizona resident who is at least 18, is a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident, and can read, write and understand English can apply to be commissioned as a notary public by the Arizona Secretary of State. The path changed materially on July 1, 2025: since that date every applicant, first-timers and renewing notaries alike, must pass a proctored notary competency exam before filing an application. Most guides still online describe the older, exam-free process. Plan on roughly six to ten weeks from start to finish — a week or two to study the state manual and sit the exam, then the four to six weeks the Secretary of State's office takes to process a clean application, then a few days to order your seal and journal after your commission certificate arrives.

Eligibility requirements

The qualifications are set by A.R.S. § 41-269(B) and are verified during the application review. The Secretary of State's office cannot commission anyone who does not meet all of them.

• Age. At least eighteen years of age.
• Citizenship. A citizen or permanent legal resident of the United States.
• Residency. A resident of Arizona for income tax purposes, claiming your Arizona residence as your primary residence on both state and federal tax returns. A mailing address in the state is not enough.
• Language. Able to read, write and understand English.
• Character and criminal history. Not disqualified under A.R.S. § 41-271, which lets the Secretary of State deny, refuse to renew, revoke or suspend a commission for any act or omission showing the applicant lacks the honesty, integrity, competence or reliability to act as a notary. Arizona does not impose a fingerprint card, fingerprint clearance card or third-party background screening as part of the notary application — the review is a records and disclosure review conducted by the Secretary of State.
• Exam. Passed the examination described in A.R.S. § 41-270, which the Secretary of State has required since July 1, 2025.
• Reference manual. You must keep, as a reference, a manual approved by the Secretary of State describing the duties, authority and ethical responsibilities of a notary public. The current edition is the Arizona Notary Public Reference Manual, and it is free.

Step by step

1. Read the state reference manual. Deal with: the Arizona Secretary of State, Business Services Division. Cost: free. The manual is both the required reference you must keep on hand and the sole source of the exam questions, so this is not an optional warm-up.
2. Register for and pass the notary exam. Deal with: the Secretary of State's approved testing vendor. Cost: $35 to $46.75 depending on the vendor currently under contract (see the note below the cost table). You must register with the testing vendor and obtain a Candidate ID number before you complete your application. The exam is 45 multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes with an 80% passing score, and it is open book — the manual is built into the exam software, and a physical copy is not permitted at test centers or during remote testing. A passing score is valid for 90 days, so do not sit it far ahead of the rest of your paperwork.
3. Complete the online application, then print and sign it. Deal with: the Arizona Secretary of State. Cost: $43 filing fee, paid at submission. The application is web-based on azsos.gov but cannot be submitted online — you fill it in, print it, and sign it by hand. An application older than 90 days is void and must be regenerated.
4. Buy a four-year $5,000 surety bond. Deal with: a licensed surety — a notary bonding company, an insurance company or a notary organization. Cost: set by the surety, not by the state. A.R.S. § 41-269(D) requires an assurance in the form of a $5,000 surety bond covering acts performed during your commission term. Buy it in duplicate: the original goes to the Secretary of State with your application, and you keep the copy. The bond must display your printed name and be signed in two places exactly as on the application, be countersigned by the bonding company's agents in two places, be properly notarized with jurat language and no blank lines, and carry an expiration date exactly one day less than four years after the effective date. It cannot be issued more than 60 days before or after the commission starts, and its effective date cannot overlap your previous bond's end date by even one day.
5. Take your oath of office. Deal with: any Arizona notary, then the Secretary of State. Cost: none beyond the notarization of the bond. Arizona notaries are public officers and must take an oath of office under A.R.S. § 38-231, but there is no separate trip to make: the oath is printed on the bond form itself and is notarized along with it. Under A.R.S. § 38-233(B), notaries' oaths are endorsed on the bond and filed with the Secretary of State. There is no county recorder step. Arizona's notary article was recodified effective July 1, 2022, and neither the current statutes nor the current reference manual route the bond or the oath through a county recorder — a stale instruction that still appears on many third-party sites.
6. Mail or deliver the complete packet. Deal with: the Arizona Secretary of State, Notary Department, 1700 W. Washington Street, Floor 7, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2808, or in person in Phoenix or Tucson. Cost: the $43 fee, by check or money order payable to "Arizona Secretary of State" — do not mail cash. The signed application, the original bond and the fee must arrive together or the packet will not be processed. Photocopies of either document are rejected.
7. Wait for your commission certificate, then check it. Deal with: the Arizona Secretary of State. Cost: none. The reference manual states processing takes four to six weeks from receipt (the notary page on azsos.gov quotes approximately four weeks, so plan for the longer figure). When the certificate arrives, verify your name, county and commission dates immediately — those details are stamped onto your seal, and an error means reordering.
8. Order your seal and journal. Deal with: a stamp vendor, office supply store, bonding agent or notary organization. Cost: varies by vendor. The seal must be a rubber stamp in dark ink (black, dark blue, dark purple or dark brown — never red or green), no larger than 1½ by 2½ inches rectangular or 1½ inches round, and must show the words "Notary Public," your name as commissioned, your Arizona county, your commission number, your expiration date and the Great Seal of Arizona. You may hold only one seal. The journal must be paper and list notarial acts in chronological order; a permanently bound book is recommended though not required. You may not notarize anything until your bond and application are on file, your commission certificate is in hand, and you have both the seal and the journal.

What it costs to become an Arizona notary in 2026

Item	Paid to	Cost
Notary Public Reference Manual	Arizona Secretary of State	Free
Proctored notary competency exam	State-approved testing vendor	$35.00 – $46.75
Notary application fee	Arizona Secretary of State	$25.00
Notary bond filing fee	Arizona Secretary of State	$18.00
Four-year $5,000 surety bond premium	Licensed surety, insurer or notary organization	Set by the surety; not fixed by the state
Notary seal (rubber stamp)	Stamp vendor	Varies by vendor
Notary journal (paper)	Office supply store or notary organization	Varies by vendor
Errors & omissions insurance	Insurance or bonding company	Optional — not required by Arizona
Total fixed fees	State and testing vendor	$78.00 – $81.75, plus bond, seal and journal at market rates

A note on the exam fee. The Secretary of State's own materials currently publish two different figures, because the testing contract is in transition. The August 2026 reference manual states the exam is proctored by Prometric at $46.75. The notary page on azsos.gov instructs applicants that they "MUST contact Pearson to register for the Notary Exam and obtain a Candidate ID Number," links to a live Pearson VUE Arizona Notary page, and quotes $35. Both figures come from the state; neither is our estimate. Register through whichever vendor the azsos.gov notary page links to on the day you apply, and confirm the price at checkout.

The $25 application fee and the $18 bond filing fee are submitted together as a single $43 payment — that is the entire "$43 filing fee" the state quotes. Two avoidable charges are worth knowing: a $25 civil penalty if you fail to report a change of mailing, home or business address within 30 days, and a $25 fee on any payment returned for insufficient funds. Later on, a duplicate commission certificate or a notarial capacity certificate costs $18 each, and a copy of your bond obtained through a public records request costs $3.10.

The Arizona notary exam

Arizona had no notary exam at all until recently. Acting under A.R.S. § 41-270, the Secretary of State made the exam available on May 1, 2025 and made it mandatory on July 1, 2025 — the two-month gap was deliberate, giving sitting notaries a window to test before the requirement bit. It applies to new applicants, to every notary renewing a commission, and to notaries whose commissions have been suspended. If you are reading an Arizona notary guide that does not mention an exam, it predates the change.

The format is consistent across every official description: 45 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes, 80% to pass — 36 of 45 correct. Every question is drawn from the Notary Public Reference Manual, and the exam is open book with the manual embedded in the testing software, so the skill being tested is finding and applying the right rule quickly, not memorizing it. A passing score stays valid for 90 days.

Retake rules differ slightly between the state's published notices: the reference manual says a failed exam can be retaken after 30 days and that three failures trigger a one-year wait, while the notary page describes three attempts followed by a 30-day wait to reschedule. Either way, a failure costs you at least a month, and each attempt is charged again — worth avoiding on a 45-question open-book test. Work through the manual's chapters on the four notarial acts Arizona permits (acknowledgments, jurats, copy certifications, and oaths and affirmations), satisfactory evidence of identity, journal entries and the fee schedule, then pressure-test yourself with our free Arizona notary practice test before you book a seat.

After you are commissioned

Term. An Arizona notary commission runs four years under A.R.S. § 41-269(E). You may notarize until 11:59 p.m. on your expiration date.

What you may do, and charge. Arizona notaries may perform only four acts: acknowledgments, jurats, copy certifications, and oaths and affirmations. Fees are capped by rule at $10 — per notary signature for an acknowledgment or jurat, per page for a copy certification, per act for an oath or affirmation. You may charge anything from nothing up to that cap, but you must pick a standard fee and post your fee schedule conspicuously at all times. Travel mileage may be charged separately at the rate allowed for Arizona state employees. An employer may not require you to charge more than $10.

Journal and seal duties. You must record every notarial act in a paper journal kept in chronological order, and retain journals for at least five years after the most recent entry. If you perform both public-record and non-public-record notarizations you must keep two separate journals. Your seal and any journal containing only public records are your personal property regardless of who paid for your commission, and an employer cannot keep them. Report a lost, stolen or compromised journal to the Secretary of State within 10 days. When you resign, let the commission lapse or otherwise stop serving, the seal, journal and records must be surrendered to the Secretary of State within three months, by certified mail or another method that produces a receipt.

New for 2026 — the thumbprint rule. Senate Bill 1479, signed April 9, 2026 and effective September 12, 2026, amends A.R.S. § 41-254 to combat deed fraud. When notarizing a deed, quitclaim deed, deed of trust, any other document affecting real property, or a power of attorney, you must take the signer's right thumbprint in your journal. If the right thumb is unavailable, use the left thumb or any available finger and note which; if the signer is physically unable to give a print, record that and explain the condition. Trustee's deeds arising from foreclosure and deeds of release and reconveyance are exempt.

Renewal. You may file a renewal application, a new bond and the fees up to 60 days before your commission expires. Renewal is not a formality: since July 1, 2025 you must pass the exam again before filing. You must also order a new seal showing the new expiration date before performing any notarization under the new commission. If you let a commission lapse, you may reapply at any time, but you cannot notarize in the interim.

Remote online notarization. Yes — Arizona authorizes both remote online notarization and electronic notarization, governed by A.R.S. § 41-263 and the administrative rules at A.A.C. R2-12-1201 and following. It is a separate authorization on top of your commission, and only a currently active Arizona notary may apply. Before your first remote act you must notify the Secretary of State and identify the technologies you intend to use; for electronic notarization you must also certify that you hold a digital certificate from a qualified certificate authority. The Secretary of State responds within 45 days. In practice you must identify the signer by personal knowledge, a credible witness, or at least two types of identity proofing; record the session audiovisually; retain that recording for at least five years; and mark the certificate to show communication technology was used. Note the interaction with the new thumbprint rule: a remotely notarized deed or power of attorney is exempt from the thumbprint requirement only if the recording shows the identification presented and you keep the recording for at least seven years.

Arizona is one of the cheaper and faster states to enter — under $82 in fixed fees, no training course requirement, and no fingerprinting — but the July 2025 exam requirement has quietly tripped up renewing notaries who assumed their next cycle would work the way the last one did. Take the exam early, keep the 90-day score window and your bond dates aligned with your filing, and confirm the current testing vendor and fee on the Secretary of State's notary page before you pay anything. If a question comes up, Business Services answers at (602) 542-6187.