Arizona Notary Public Exam

The Arizona notary examination is administered by Pearson VUE on behalf of the Secretary of State and applies to first-time applicants and renewing notaries alike. Content comes straight from the Notary Public Reference Manual: eligibility and the $5,000 bond, the six notarial acts and their certificates, identification rules, journal and seal requirements, fee limits, prohibited acts such as unauthorized legal or immigration advice, and remote online notarization. A commission runs four years, so most notaries will face the exam each renewal cycle. The test is open book with the manual built into the examination, which rewards candidates who already know the manual's structure and can find answers fast.

Each proctored examination attempt costs $35, paid through Pearson VUE. The exam can be taken 3 times; after a third failed attempt you must wait 30 days to reschedule, and each attempt is charged again. Commissioning itself adds a $43 application and bond filing fee to the Secretary of State, plus the premium a surety company charges for the required $5,000 four-year bond. Stamps, journals and any remote notarization platform subscriptions are purchased separately from private vendors.

The examination consists of 45 questions to be completed within 60 minutes, and a grade of 80% is needed to pass. It is open book: the Notary Public Reference Manual is built into the exam, though physical copies are not allowed at test sites or during remote proctoring. Questions are drawn directly from the manual.

If an article tells you Arizona notaries do not take an exam, it is out of date. Since July 1, 2025, the Arizona Secretary of State has required every new and renewing notary public to pass a proctored competency examination, a change adopted under A.R.S. § 41-270 to help protect the public from fraud. Treat any walkthrough that skips the exam as pre-2025 material.

The current path has two halves: pass the Secretary of State's exam through Pearson VUE, online or at a Pearson test center, then file your application, surety bond, and filing fee with the Secretary of State's office. Here is the whole sequence, registration to results, using only the numbers the state itself publishes.

Who has to test

Everyone. The requirement that took effect on July 1, 2025 covers both first-time applicants and notaries renewing an existing commission, so a clean record and years of experience do not exempt you. If your renewal window opens in 2026, budget time for the exam before the paperwork, because a renewal cannot be completed without a passing score.

Step 1: Confirm eligibility before you spend a dollar

Arizona's qualification statute, A.R.S. § 41-269, sets the baseline. You must be at least 18 years old, a United States citizen or permanent legal resident, an Arizona resident for income tax purposes who claims Arizona as primary residence on state and federal returns, and able to read, write and understand English. The statute lists no training course and no education level; the exam was added on top of the paperwork, it did not replace anything.

Step 2: Register with Pearson VUE and pay the exam fee

The Secretary of State's notary page sends candidates to Pearson VUE to register, and the exam can be taken online or at any of Pearson's testing sites. Every proctored attempt costs $35, and the fee is assessed each time you sit, retakes included. Scheduling runs through Pearson VUE rather than the state office. The Secretary of State's page does not itemize check-in rules or identification requirements for test day, so confirm those details with Pearson VUE when you book your appointment.

Step 3: The format: 45 questions, 60 minutes, open book

The exam consists of 45 basic questions drawn directly from the 2025 Notary Public Reference Manual, and you must finish within 60 minutes. A grade of 80% is needed to pass, whether you are starting a commission or renewing one.

Take the open-book label with a caveat. The manual is built into the examination and a physical copy is not allowed, so your own tabbed or annotated copy cannot come with you. Because the clock allows barely more than a minute per question, there is little time to read the manual during the exam. Treat it as a reference you already know cold: read the manual once end to end, learn where the sections on journals, fees, and prohibited acts sit, then drill retrieval speed with free Arizona notary practice questions until finding an answer takes seconds rather than minutes.

Sections to know cold

Start with the manual's statute-backed numbers: the journal rules (records must be kept for at least five years after each notarial act), the fee cap (no more than $10 per notarial act), and the notice deadlines (an address change must be reported to the Secretary of State within 30 days, a lost or stolen journal or stamp within 10 days). Know where those pages sit; the built-in copy is the only one you will have in the 60-minute window.

Step 4: Results and the retake rule

The Secretary of State does not publish a pass rate for this exam, and its pages do not say how quickly scores are reported, so no results timeline is invented here. What the Secretary of State's notary page does publish is the retake rule: the examination can be taken 3 times, and after a third failed attempt you must wait 30 days to reschedule. Each attempt is billed at $35, so a narrow miss costs another fee, and a third miss costs you a month.

Step 5: File the application, the bond, and the filing fee

Passing the exam earns the right to file, not the commission itself. The Secretary of State's filing checklist calls for an original signed notary application, an original signed and notarized surety bond, and a $43 application and bond filing fee, and the office reserves the right to request additional documentation or fees during processing. The bond amount is fixed by A.R.S. § 41-269 at $5,000. One employment wrinkle worth knowing: an employer may not cancel the bond of a notary employee who leaves the job.

Costs at a glance

Step 6: Your commission, and the renewal clock

Once the Secretary of State accepts your package, it issues a commission for a term of four years. Renewal can begin as early as two months before your current commission ends, and renewal is no longer a rubber stamp: renewing notaries sit the same examination under the same 80% pass mark. The renewal filing mirrors the original package: an original signed application, an original signed and notarized bond, and the $43 application and bond filing fee. Put the exam on your renewal calendar rather than discovering it the week your commission lapses.

A study plan that fits the exam

Every question comes from a single official manual, and the pass mark is fixed at 80%. A sensible two-week plan is one full read of the manual, a second pass to outline the deadline and fee rules, then daily timed question sets. Our Arizona Notary Public study guide and the Arizona notary exam hub collect the format details, study aids, and practice sets.