Nebraska Notary Rules and Duties

Section 64-105 prohibits any notarial act unless the principal is in your presence and is either personally known to you or identified through satisfactory evidence. Personal knowledge means familiarity built through interactions over time, enough to dispel reasonable doubt about identity.

Nebraska's documentary standard is stricter than the uniform act. The ID must be current, and a driver's license or state card has to carry a photo, a signature and a physical description. A passport qualifies without a physical description if it is properly stamped. The statute makes no allowance for recently expired documents.

Section 64-105.01 lists three disqualifications. You may not notarize for your spouse, ancestor, descendant or sibling, including in-law, step and half relatives. You may not act if you have a financial or beneficial interest in the transaction beyond the ordinary fee or are named as a party. And you may not act if you do not understand the certificate you are being asked to complete.

The financial-interest rule has industry exceptions. Sections 64-211 to 64-215 allow notaries who work for attorneys, real estate brokers, insurance companies, credit unions, banks and savings and loan associations to take acknowledgments and administer oaths on their employer's instruments. The relative rule has no such exception, and you can never notarize your own signature.

Section 64-210 requires an ink stamp seal showing State of Nebraska, General Notary or General Notarial, your commissioned name and your expiration date, and section 64-107 has you certify each act over your signature and seal. The FAQ suggests stamping near your signature without covering printed text or signatures.

Short-form acknowledgment certificates for individuals, corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, attorneys in fact and public officers appear in section 64-206. The certificate does not have to be on the signature page; if there is no room, it may be typed on a separate sheet and attached. The Secretary of State's FAQ also says you need not demand proof that a corporate officer or trustee actually holds that role; identity is what you verify.

Section 33-133 sets the maximums. Public employees may not charge these fees at all if their government employer paid their commission and bond costs.

Once the bond is filed and the commission issued, section 64-102 authorizes you to act in every county of Nebraska. The venue at the top of a certificate records where the act actually happens, not where you live or where the document was drafted. The Secretary of State's example: a notarization in Lincoln is venued State of Nebraska, County of Lancaster.

Documents from other states frequently arrive with the wrong venue already printed. Line through the incorrect state and county and write in the correct ones. The FAQ is firm that correction fluid and correction tape are never acceptable on a document being notarized.

Nothing in the statutes forbids notarizing a minor's signature, but the FAQ urges caution because a minor may not understand the document, and the same identification standard applies.

Journals are optional in Nebraska, but the Secretary of State strongly recommends one and publishes a sample with instructions. The suggested columns are the date on the document, the date of the act, document type, the ID used, the principal's printed name and address, and the principal's signature.

Section 64-105.02 covers signers who cannot write. A signature by mark needs two unaffected witnesses who sign beside the mark, and the notary adds a prescribed notation. If the person cannot even make a mark, the notary may sign the person's name at their direction, again with two witnesses and a notation.

Never notarize a document with blanks. The Secretary of State's guidance is to refuse until each blank is completed or lined through and initialed.

Section 64-105.03 bars a non-attorney notary from choosing the type of certificate when none is provided, and from helping anyone draft, complete, select or understand a document that needs notarizing. You may not claim powers the office does not grant, including immigration advice, and you may not use notario publico or any non-English equivalent. Advertising in another language must include a statement that you are not an attorney and cannot give legal or immigration advice. A violation is treated as the unauthorized practice of law under section 7-101.

Nebraska separates in-person electronic notarization, where the signer and notary are physically together, from online notarization, where the signer is remote. Each requires its own registration on top of a general commission. Online notaries complete the Secretary of State's training course, pass a separate exam, pay $50 and work through an approved solution provider. Section 64-105 itself does not apply to acts under the Online Notary Public Act.

Anyone harmed by a notary's unlawful act, negligence or misconduct can sue on the bond under section 64-109. Under section 64-113 the Secretary of State may investigate charges of malfeasance, hold a hearing and remove a notary or temporarily revoke the commission.