Montana Notary Rules for New Notaries

For acknowledgments, jurats, signature witnessings and oaths, MCA 1-5-603 requires you to establish identity from personal knowledge or satisfactory evidence, and to judge that the person is signing knowingly and willingly. Satisfactory evidence under subsection (12) includes a passport, driver's license or government nondriver ID that is current or expired no more than three years, or another government ID within the same three-year limit that bears the person's signature or photograph and satisfies you. A credible witness who is known to you or identified by one of those documents can also vouch under oath.

The handbook describes personal knowledge as knowing someone well enough to identify them in court years later. You may always demand more proof (MCA 1-5-603(14)). For representative signers, you also confirm their authority from the record, personal knowledge or an official record.

MCA 1-5-618 requires one or more journals, either a permanent bound paper register designed to deter fraud or a tamper-evident electronic journal. Record each act at the time it happens:

Montana forbids recording a Social Security number, passport number, driver's license number or birth date in the journal (MCA 1-5-618(4)). You keep sole control of it; an employer may keep a copy of entries made on the job but not the journal itself without the Secretary of State's approval. Members of the public may see a single entry by signed request naming the month, year, record type and principal, if you are satisfied the purpose is lawful. Keep journals ten years after the last entry, notify the Division promptly if one is lost or stolen, and keep audiovisual recordings of remote acts for ten years as well.

MCA 1-5-609 requires a certificate completed at the time of the act that names the act, gives the venue, identifies the principal, is signed and dated as your signature is on file, shows your title and carries your stamp impression. Venue means the state and county where you are physically located (MCA 1-5-629). Never stamp or sign a record lacking your completed certificate (MCA 1-5-625(1)(d)).

You may later correct a certificate only if your journal supports the change; date and initial the correction and note it in the journal. A stamp impression cannot be altered, though a new impression may be added. Sign in blue or black ink. The stamp itself must meet ARM 44.15.107, and any change to its information means a new stamp rather than a handwritten fix.

MCA 1-5-626 caps the charge at $10 per act for acknowledgments, signature witnessings, jurats, certified transcripts, certified copies, certifications of fact and other authorized acts. Extra fees for travel or for electronic or remote notarization are allowed under ARM 44.15.109 only if you explain that they are additional and not set by law, and the customer agrees in advance; travel charges may not exceed the IRS standard mileage rate. You may recover the actual cost of copying a journal entry or recording. If you charge, display your fee list in English.

MCA 1-5-625 bars notarizing your own signature or any record in which you are individually named or from which you will directly benefit. A partner, shareholder, director, officer or employee of a business who is named in a record, or who signs it for the business, may not notarize anyone's signature on it. The handbook says notarizing for a spouse or relative is generally acceptable outside those limits, but urges caution with deeds, wills and powers of attorney.

You also may not certify copies of birth, death or marriage certificates, court records or school transcripts unless you work for the entity holding the original; advertise deceptively; use the term notario without being a Montana attorney; withhold a customer's original document; or give legal or immigration advice. Non-attorney notaries who advertise must include the statutory disclaimer.

Montana recognizes four methods: traditional, in-person electronic, remote online, and remote notarization of paper documents, which the Division describes as available in only two states and limits to acknowledgments. To offer any technology-based method, you choose a system, complete an approved course and exam, and notify the Division with proof. You must be in Montana during the act, the session must be recorded, remote signers are identified by personal knowledge, a credible witness or two approved technologies, and the certificate must say communication technology was used (MCA 1-5-603 and 1-5-609).

The Secretary of State may deny, refuse to renew, suspend, revoke or condition a commission for conduct showing a lack of honesty, integrity, competence or reliability, and may order remedial education (MCA 1-5-621). A notary convicted of, or pleading guilty or no contest to, a felony involving fraud, dishonesty or deceit must notify the Division within 30 days. MCA 1-5-632 makes it a crime, punishable by up to a $2,500 fine and a year in jail per offense, to withhold a notary's stamp or journal, reuse a notary's signature, stamp or certificate on another record, destroy notarial records, or alter a certificate outside the permitted correction process. The handbook adds that notaries are personally liable for damage caused by misconduct, beyond the $25,000 bond.