North Carolina Notary Rules Every New Notary Should Know

G.S. 10B-20(c) bars a notarial act when the principal or subscribing witness is not in your presence, except under the remote rules in Part 4A, or when you neither know the person nor have satisfactory evidence of identity. G.S. 10B-3(22) defines satisfactory evidence as either a current document issued by a federal, state, or federal or state-recognized tribal government agency that bears the person's photograph and a signature or physical description, or the oath or affirmation of one credible witness who personally knows the signer. The credible witness, in turn, must be personally known to you.

Under G.S. 10B-40(a2), signing a certificate also means you did not judge the signer to be incompetent, lacking understanding, or acting under duress or undue influence.

Every notarized signature needs a certificate stating what kind of act was performed; G.S. 10B-23 forbids notarizing a bare signature. A notary who is not an attorney may not pick the certificate type for a signer, though G.S. 10B-20(m) lets you offer a selection of statutory forms. Certificates must be in English under G.S. 10B-22, even when the document itself is in another language.

On paper records you sign by hand in ink, after the act is performed, never with a facsimile (G.S. 10B-35). The seal goes near your signature, on the same page as the certificate text, and must contain your commissioned name, Notary Public, your county with the word County or Co., and North Carolina or NC (G.S. 10B-36 and 10B-37). Report a lost or stolen seal within 10 days to the register of deeds and the Secretary, and to law enforcement in a theft.

G.S. 10B-31 sets maximums, not required amounts. If you charge, you must display or hand each principal an English-language fee schedule in at least 10-point type (G.S. 10B-32).

You may not notarize when you are a signer of, party to, or beneficiary of the record. Limited exceptions cover a notary named only as trustee in a deed of trust, drafter, the return-to person, or the attorney for a party. Working for a party or owning its stock does not by itself disqualify you. You also may not act if you will receive anything from the transaction worth more than the statutory fee, apart from pay for services as a licensed attorney, real estate broker, motor vehicle dealer, or banker.

Other flat prohibitions: no certifying or notarizing a photograph (G.S. 10B-23), no true-copy certifications according to the Secretary's FAQ, no endorsements using your title or seal (G.S. 10B-24), and no false certificates (G.S. 10B-22). Non-attorney notaries may not give legal advice or help someone draft, select, or understand a record, may not advertise as immigration consultants, and must include the statutory not-an-attorney notice in any non-English advertising.

For traditional paper notarizations, G.S. 10B-38 says a notary may keep a journal of notarial acts under rules adopted by the Secretary, and the Secretary's notary home page treats the journal as one of a notary's primary safeguards. Electronic notaries performing remote electronic notarizations are in a different position: G.S. 10B-134.15 requires an electronic journal of those acts, kept as the notary's exclusive property, and the Secretary's rules must require 10 years of retention.

Whatever you keep, do not hand your seal or journal to an employer when you leave a job. G.S. 10B-36(a) says the seal belongs to you and may not be surrendered on termination.

North Carolina has a separate electronic notary registration in Article 2 of Chapter 10B, with its own course and fees. The Remote Electronic Notarization Act became law on July 8, 2022, and the Secretary lists its rulemaking as ongoing; the site alert below ties the end of the emergency program to the first license being issued. Meanwhile, a site alert on the Secretary's pages says emergency video notarizations under G.S. 10B-25 have been extended to 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 2027, or until the first remote electronic notarization license issues. Check the Secretary's current guidance before performing any act that is not face to face.

G.S. 10B-60 gives the Secretary power to warn, restrict, suspend, or revoke, and the Secretary's FAQ adds that a notary may be sent back to class. Taking an acknowledgment or oath without personal appearance or without proper identification is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Doing so with intent to commit fraud, or notarizing something you know is false, is a Class I felony. So is concealing or destroying a notary's seal or records without authority, a point the FAQ uses to remind former notaries to return old seals.