The California Notary Public commission is granted by the California Secretary of State, and California gates it twice: every applicant must satisfactorily complete a Secretary of State approved six-hour course of study, and must separately pass the written Notary Public Examination administered for the Secretary of State by CPS HR Consulting. The examination is multiple-choice, closed-book, and proctored — 45 items in 1 hour, 40 scored and 5 non-scored — and, in CPS HR Consulting’s published form, a scaled score of at least 70 is required to pass. Candidates may test only once per calendar month.
This program is part of the expanding PassProfessor catalog — join the notify list and we’ll email you when enrollment opens.
What this commission is
A California Notary Public is a public official appointed and commissioned by the California Secretary of State. Under Government Code section 8200, notaries commissioned in California may act in any part of the state — the commission is statewide, not a county licence, even though one later step (filing the oath and bond) is done with a county clerk. The term of office is four years, commencing with the date specified in the commission (Government Code section 8204).
Many states commission notaries with no examination at all. California is not one of them: it pairs a mandatory approved course with a separate, proctored, closed-book state examination, then adds a fingerprint background check, a $15,000 official bond, and a hard 30-calendar-day filing deadline before the commission takes effect. A candidate therefore faces two kinds of risk — failing an examination, and failing a clock. This program prepares for the examination itself, and teaches the clocks around it. The companion reference is the California Notary Public Exam Guide, which sets out the route, the content areas in full, and the sitting in detail.
One distinction governs everything on this page: the approved course of study and examination preparation are not the same thing. The six-hour course (or the three-hour refresher, in the narrow reappointment case below) must be taken from a Secretary of State approved education vendor, and it produces the Proof of Completion certificate the examination requires. PassProfessor is a preparation provider, not an approved California notary education vendor, and nothing in this program satisfies or counts toward that course requirement. This program prepares you to pass the examination that follows the course.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Commission | California Notary Public — appointed and commissioned by the California Secretary of State; exercisable in any part of California |
| Commission term | Four years, commencing with the date specified in the commission (Government Code section 8204) |
| Eligibility | Be at least 18 years of age (no maximum age is set by statute); be a legal California resident; complete a Secretary of State approved course of study; pass a written examination prescribed by the Secretary of State; and clear a background check (Government Code section 8201) |
| Mandatory education | A Secretary of State approved six-hour course of study prior to appointment. A three-hour refresher is acceptable only for a current notary public with a valid commission who has completed the six-hour course at least once and applies for reappointment before the current commission expires |
| Proof of Completion | Valid for two years from issuance; if the examination is not passed before it expires, another six-hour course must be completed |
| Examination | Written Notary Public Examination, administered for the Secretary of State by CPS HR Consulting |
| Format | Multiple-choice; closed-book; administered by proctors. 45 items in total with a 1-hour time limit: 40 items across the published content areas, plus 5 non-scored items that do not count against the candidate’s score |
| Content areas (CPS HR Consulting) | Misconduct/Fees: 15 items; Notarial Acts/Documentation: 12 items; Administrative Procedures: 5 items; Identification/Subscribing Witness Notarizations: 4 items; Immigration/Foreign Language: 4 items — 40 scored items in total |
| Passing score | A scaled score of at least 70 is required to pass (CPS HR Consulting’s published form; a scaled score is not a percent score) |
| Testing frequency | Only once per calendar month; a second score in the same calendar month is invalid and fees paid are forfeited |
| Examination results | Sent approximately 15–20 business days following the examination; valid for one year from the date of the examination |
| Examination and application fee | $40.00 exam and application processing fee, paid at the examination site by check or money order payable to the Secretary of State (cash is not accepted); $20.00 for applicants who previously took the examination and failed — a state fee, not a PassProfessor charge |
| Background check | Fingerprints submitted electronically through the Department of Justice Live Scan program, transmitted to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; taken within one year of the exam date; one set per commission term |
| Bond and oath | An official bond of $15,000, executed by an admitted surety insurer (Government Code section 8212), filed with the oath of office with the county clerk of the principal place of business within 30 calendar days from the commencement date — a period that cannot be extended; the commission does not take effect unless this is done in that period (Government Code section 8213) |
| Administrator | The California Secretary of State commissions notaries public; CPS HR Consulting administers the examination. PassProfessor is independent, is not affiliated with either, and is not a Secretary of State approved notary education vendor |
What the examination covers
CPS HR Consulting publishes the content as 40 scored items across five areas, with all of the material in the California Notary Public Handbook (including updates, if any) subject to examination. The distribution is uneven, and the unevenness is the study plan.
Misconduct/Fees — 15 items
The largest single area. It examines what a notary public must not do and what a notary public may charge: misconduct, prohibited conduct, and the fee rules governing notarial services. California tests the integrity and fee discipline of the office more heavily than any single act a notary performs — candidates who prepare the acts thoroughly and this area lightly have misread the paper.
Notarial Acts/Documentation — 12 items
The second-largest area examines the acts themselves and the documentation that completes them — the certificates, records, and journal discipline that make an act complete and defensible. An act performed correctly and documented incorrectly is, in this area’s logic, an unfinished act, and items are built on exactly that seam.
Administrative Procedures — 5 items
This area examines the commission’s administrative life: the application, commission, oath, bond, seal, and record-keeping machinery surrounding the acts — the procedures a candidate is living through on the route below. It is a bounded, learnable area whose items reward candidates who have read the checklist as a candidate rather than as a spectator.
Identification/Subscribing Witness Notarizations — 4 items
Four items examine the identification of signers and the subscribing-witness route — how a notary establishes who is signing, and the distinct procedure when a subscribing witness is involved. Small in count, exacting in content: the items test the procedure, not an approximation of it.
Immigration/Foreign Language — 4 items
The final area examines the rules where notarial work meets immigration matters and foreign-language documents and advertising — a California-specific area with its own statutory restrictions, which candidates prepared on generic national material will not have met.
In addition to the 40 scored items, each presentation includes 5 non-scored items, included only to collect information so they can be used on a future examination. They cannot be identified and do not count against the candidate’s score — the only sound strategy is full effort on all 45 items.
The route, in order
The Secretary of State publishes the route as a seven-step checklist, reproduced here in that order — in California the order is itself a requirement at several points.
Step 1 — Complete approved education
Every person seeking appointment must satisfactorily complete a Secretary of State approved six-hour course of study prior to appointment (Government Code section 8201). The narrow exception: a current notary public with a valid commission who has completed the six-hour course at least once takes instead an approved three-hour refresher course prior to reappointment — acceptable only if they apply before the current commission expires; if it expires first, another six-hour course is required. On completion the student receives a Proof of Completion certificate, valid for two years: pass the examination before it expires, or take another six-hour course.
Step 2 — Register for the exam
Register with CPS HR Consulting, the Secretary of State’s examination administrator — online or by telephone — and study the California Notary Public Handbook, which the Secretary of State recommends applicants review before the examination and all of whose material is subject to examination.
Step 3 — Take the exam
Bring: a current photo identification; a complete current Notary Public Application form; a 2″ x 2″ color passport photo; your Proof of Completion certificate; the registration confirmation letter; and the $40.00 fee (or $20.00 if you previously failed), by check or money order payable to the Secretary of State — cash is not accepted. The sitting is 45 items in 1 hour; allow approximately 2–3 hours in total for registration, testing, and proctor instructions. Successful applicants’ applications are transmitted to the Secretary of State; each applicant below the standard is mailed a fail notice with a re-take voucher, and the examination may be re-taken — but not more than once in the same calendar month.
Step 4 — Submit fingerprints via Live Scan
Only after passing: applicants who fail are not required to be fingerprinted until they pass. Fingerprints must be taken within one year of the exam date — if they are not, the applicant will be required to retest — and are submitted electronically through the Department of Justice Live Scan program, for transmission to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No commission issues until reports are received stating there is no criminal history, or until any history identified has been reviewed and found non-disqualifying.
Step 5 — Await the commission packet
Once the application is approved and the background check has cleared, the commission packet is mailed: a cover letter with instructions, filing instructions, the commission certificate, two Notary Public Oath and Certificate of Filing forms, a Certificate of Authorization to Manufacture Notary Public Seals, and a list of authorized seal manufacturers.
Step 6 — Purchase notary public materials
The bond, the journal, and the seal: an official bond — $15,000, by an admitted surety insurer — purchased and filed with the county clerk; one active sequential journal kept for all notarial acts (Government Code section 8206); and a seal obtained only from a Secretary of State authorized manufacturer.
Step 7 — File the oath and bond
File the oath of office and the bond with the county clerk’s office in the county of your principal place of business, within 30 calendar days from the commencement date of the commission. That period cannot be extended, and the commission does not take effect unless the filing is done within it. The Secretary of State recommends filing in person to guarantee timeliness, and is blunt about the consequence of missing the step: a person who did not file on time must reapply to become a notary public.
What makes this examination demanding
The first demand is arithmetic: 45 items in 60 minutes is 80 seconds an item, closed-book. The second is the blueprint’s shape: Misconduct/Fees alone is 15 of the 40 scored items, so the paper is decided disproportionately by conduct and fee rules, while the notarial acts most candidates study first carry 12. The third is scaling: a candidate cannot convert practice performance into a number of questions they can afford to miss, because CPS HR Consulting states expressly that a scaled score is not a percent score and cannot be calculated by dividing the number correct by the total number of questions. The fourth is that the examination is only the middle of the route: the Proof of Completion runs on a two-year clock, the examination result and fingerprints on one-year clocks, and the oath and bond on a non-extendable 30-calendar-day clock. Candidates lose commissions to expired paper more quietly than to failed sittings.
The credential at work
A California Notary Public commission is the working credential behind a large share of the state’s document life: real estate closings, lending and escrow files, court and legal documents, and the everyday acknowledgments and jurats that move signatures into records. Its holders staff law offices, escrow and title companies, banks, real estate brokerages, and independent mobile notary practices — and because the commission is statewide and runs for four years, it is a durable professional asset rather than a per-transaction permit.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Practice in the examination’s own shape. The program in the works practises in the examination’s shape: timed sets at the real pace — 45 items in 1 hour, 80 seconds an item, closed-book — weighted to CPS HR Consulting’s published content areas, with Misconduct/Fees carrying the largest practice share, as it carries the largest share of the scored paper.
Written from the primary sources. The program is written from the Secretary of State’s notary pages and checklist, the California Notary Public Handbook, and CPS HR Consulting’s official examination information — the five content areas and their item counts, the scaled passing standard in its published form, and the once-per-calendar-month rule — and it teaches the California-specific areas, including Immigration/Foreign Language, that generic notary material does not cover.
The course boundary, taught explicitly. The program states, wherever a candidate could confuse them, that the approved six-hour course (or three-hour refresher, where it applies) is a separate requirement taken from an approved vendor, and that this program does not satisfy it.
The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the item practice, the program carries the full route as the Secretary of State publishes it — the seven checklist steps in order, the two-year Proof of Completion clock, the one-year validity of results and of the fingerprint window, the $15,000 bond, and the non-extendable 30-calendar-day filing.
Preparation only. This is preparation for an examination administered by CPS HR Consulting for the California Secretary of State. PassProfessor is not affiliated with the California Secretary of State or CPS HR Consulting, is not a Secretary of State approved notary education vendor, and confers no commission.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The California Notary Public program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program.
Frequently asked questions
Is the six-hour course the same as examination preparation?
No. The six-hour course is a statutory requirement completed with a Secretary of State approved education vendor, producing the Proof of Completion certificate you bring to the examination site. Examination preparation — including this program, when it opens — is separate study for the written examination. One does not substitute for the other.
Who has to take the six-hour course, and who takes the three-hour refresher?
Every person seeking appointment takes the approved six-hour course, no matter how many commission terms they have held. The three-hour refresher is only for a current notary public with a valid commission who has completed the six-hour course at least once, and only if they apply for reappointment before their current commission expires. If the commission expires first, the six-hour course is required again.
How many questions are on the examination, and how long is it?
45 items in total with a 1-hour time limit: 40 across the five published content areas, plus 5 non-scored items. The examination is multiple-choice, closed-book, and proctored; allow approximately 2–3 hours for registration, testing, and proctor instructions on the day.
What is the passing score?
In CPS HR Consulting’s published form: a scaled score of at least 70 is required to pass. A scaled score converts a raw score to a common scale (scores range from 0 to 100), standardized across the examination’s multiple forms. It is not a percent score, and CPS HR Consulting states that it cannot be calculated by dividing the number correct by the total number of questions — so no number-of-correct-answers equivalent is published, and this page does not invent one.
How long are my results and my course certificate good for?
On different clocks. A Proof of Completion certificate is valid for two years from issuance. Examination results are valid for one year from the date of the examination, and fingerprints must be taken within one year of the exam date or you will be required to retest. Reappointing notaries are advised to take the examination at least six months before their current commission expires, to avoid a break in commission.
Is there an attorney exemption from the California examination?
No attorney exemption from the examination appears in the Secretary of State’s official qualifications or checklist for this commission; the published requirements are stated for every person seeking appointment. Other states exempt licensed attorneys from their notary examinations — do not carry that rule into California.
What happens after I pass?
Your application is transmitted to the Secretary of State for processing. You then submit fingerprints via Live Scan, await the commission packet, purchase your bond, journal, and seal, and file your oath of office and $15,000 bond with the county clerk of your principal place of business within 30 calendar days of the commencement date — the commission does not take effect unless that filing is timely.
How long does the commission last, and where can I act?
Four years, commencing with the date specified in the commission, and a California notary public may act in any part of the state — the oath and bond are filed in one county, but the commission itself is statewide.