Illinois Notary Public Exam Preparation: The Course and Its Final Examination, Prepared Properly

The Illinois Notary Public gate is a course + examination package, in force since January 1, 2024: every applicant applying for the first time or renewing — as a notary public or as an electronic notary public — must complete the course of study on notarization and electronic notarization required by the Secretary of State and pass an examination at the completion of the course (5 ILCS 312/2-101.5). The course is 3 hours of instruction from a Secretary of State–certified provider, and its final examination is 50 questions drawn from a test bank of a minimum of 100 questions. In the rule’s published form: a student must score at least 85% on the final examination. A $5,000 surety bond and a $15 Illinois appointment fee complete the route to a four-year commission from the Secretary of State’s Index Department.

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What this commission is

An Illinois notary public is a public official appointed and commissioned by the Illinois Secretary of State — the Index Department appoints and commissions active notaries public in Illinois and administers the Illinois Notary Public Act, 5 ILCS 312. Under section 2-101, the Secretary of State may appoint and commission as notaries public for a 4-year term as many persons resident in a county in this State as he deems necessary; a qualifying resident of a bordering state is commissioned for 1 year. The Secretary of State’s own description of the office is the fraud-prevention one: notarization serves to prevent fraud and forgery, and a notary acts as an official and unbiased witness to the identity of the person who comes before the notary for a specific purpose. The commission does not authorise the notary to practise law.

Illinois structures the gate to that office differently from a standalone examination state, and this page keeps that structure exact, because third-party material routinely flattens it into a “test” a candidate simply books. There is no separate test-center sitting to schedule. Section 2-101.5 of the Act provides that applicants applying for the first time or applying to renew — as a notary public or as an electronic notary public — shall complete any course of study on notarization and electronic notarization that is required by the Secretary of State, and pass an examination at the completion of the course. The Secretary of State sets the course content and length and approves the providers by rule, and the rules — 14 Ill. Adm. Code Part 176, Subpart C — fix the package: 3 hours of instruction, a minimum of 180 minutes, completed within a maximum of 30 days, taught by a provider or instructor certified by the Secretary, and closed by a 50-question final examination on which the student must score at least 85%. Because the requirement reaches renewals as well as first-time applicants, the tested pool recurs every commission cycle — the course + examination package is not a once-in-a-career event but a repeating condition of holding the commission. One scoped relief exists, and it is renewal-only: a renewing applicant who is a licensed attorney or judge, or who is employed by a licensed attorney or the court, may be excused from the course and the examination by filing the prescribed signed statement of having read and understood the Act in effect at the time of application. First-time applicants have no such route in the statute’s wording. The electronic notary public commission is a separate commission with its own application — its facts are kept apart throughout this package as a boundary, not merged into the base route. The companion Illinois Notary Public Exam Guide sets out the Act, the rules, the route, and the course package in detail.

The course + examination package at a glance

What the course of study covers

The rules publish no topic weights for the course or its final examination, and this page prints none. What the rules do publish is the course’s required substance and its educational objectives, and the examination’s construction — questions of such difficulty that the answers may not be easily determined without having participated in the entire course (section 176.235(c)(3)). Section 176.225(e) states the objectives a course of study must include: promoting respect for and encouraging the observance of the duties and requirements of a notary public under the Act; identifying potential damages and economic losses that could result from notarial misconduct; motivating continuing development of notarial competencies through education, including adherence to the Act; and providing knowledge of the Act, of Part 176 itself, and of other laws related to or affecting notarial work. Providers must monitor the Illinois General Assembly and update course content for amendments to the Act, submitting updates to the Department for review and approval within 60 days after a change takes effect (section 176.225(f)) — the course a candidate takes is, by rule, a course on the current Act. The areas below follow that published substance, worked through the Act and rules the course must teach.

The Act and the office: appointment, qualifications, and the commission

The opening field is the route rendered as law: the Secretary of State’s appointment power and the 4-year term (section 2-101); the application statements section 2-102 requires — the applicant’s official name and county, residence and business addresses, residence in Illinois for the 30 days preceding the application (or, for a resident of a state bordering Illinois, having worked or maintained a business in Illinois for those 30 days), citizenship of the United States or lawful admission for permanent residence, age of at least 18 years, proficiency in English as the Secretary of State’s requirements state it, that the applicant has not been convicted of a felony, and that the applicant has not had a prior application or commission revoked due to a finding or decision by the Secretary of State; the $15 appointment fee (section 2-103); the oath of office; and the bond. The Secretary of State’s application discipline is exact-name discipline: the legal name on the oath must exactly match the applicant’s driver’s license or state identification card and the name on the application (section 176.330(b)).

The course + examination package itself — sections 2-101.5 and 176.205 to 176.235

The package is examinable as a structure, not only as an event the candidate passes through. Candidates are expected to know who must complete it (first-time and renewing applicants alike, from January 1, 2024), who certifies the providers and instructors, what the course must contain and how its 180 minutes are counted — written material by word count, multimedia by playing time capped at 120 minutes, one minute per chart or graph (section 176.225(b)) — how identity and completion are verified during the course, and how the final examination is built and re-sat. The verification machinery is part of the published design: providers must submit identity-verification procedures before certification (in person, examination of a government-issued photo identification card; online, by web video recording with identification examination, dynamic knowledge-based authentication, web video proctoring with screen monitoring by live certified proctors, or another Department-approved method); built-in timers must ensure the 180 minutes are viewed and completed and must prevent a student from taking section quizzes or the final examination without viewing or reading the content; and at least one course validation question must follow each multimedia clip exceeding 60 seconds (section 176.235(a), (c)(1)–(2)).

Duties, identity, and the notarial act

The working law of the office is the Act’s duties material the course objectives name: the notary as an official, unbiased witness to identity; the identification of the person who comes before the notary; the completion of the notarial certificate — which must contain the information section 6-103 of the Act requires and must be permanently and securely attached to the tangible document in a tamper-evident manner, never by tape, paper clips, or binder clips (section 176.600) — and a legible, recognizable handwritten signature in blue or black ink on a paper certificate (section 176.600(d)). The prescribed handling of a person physically unable to sign — where another person signs at their direction, both appear before the notary and are identified, and the notary places the rule’s prescribed statement near the signature (section 176.610) — is stated in the rules in steps, and is learned in steps.

The seal, the journal, and the fees a notary may charge

On appointment, the Secretary of State sends a commission certificate, with which the appointee obtains the official seal — only on presentation of the commission certificate is a vendor authorised to provide the seal described in section 176.520 (section 176.550) — and the Secretary of State’s published position is that a notary may start notarizing once the commission is approved and the official seal is in hand. Illinois requires the notary to keep a journal of notarial acts under section 3-107 of the Act and Part 176, Subpart J (sections 176.900–176.990). The fee law is statutory and small enough to be learned whole: the maximum fee for non-electronic notarization is $5 for any notarial act, and up to $25 for an act performed pursuant to section 3-102; the maximum fee for an electronic notarial act is up to $25 (section 3-104). A notary is not required to charge a fee, must not charge more than the maximum, and must inform the requestor of the fee, if any, before performing the act (section 176.540).

Misconduct, damages, and the limits of the office

Section 176.225(e) makes the consequences part of the curriculum: identifying the potential damages and economic losses that could result from notarial misconduct is a stated objective of every certified course. The surrounding law gives that objective its content — the Secretary of State administers the Act while misconduct complaints are filed with a law enforcement agency, the Attorney General, or a State’s Attorney’s office, as the Secretary of State’s Notary Services pages direct; the commission is an appointment held on the application’s statements, including the no-felony and no-prior-revocation statements; and the office is a witnessing office, not a legal one — the notary certifies identity and the act, and does not practise law.

The route, in order

Step 1 — Meet the qualifications the application will state

Under section 2-102 of the Act and the Secretary of State’s published requirements, an applicant must be at least 18 years of age; be a citizen of the United States or lawfully admitted for permanent residence; have resided in Illinois for at least 30 days preceding the application — or, if a resident of a state bordering Illinois, have worked or maintained a business in Illinois for at least 30 days preceding it; be proficient in English; not have been convicted of a felony; and not have had a prior application or commission revoked due to a finding or decision by the Secretary of State. An Illinois resident applies online, as the Secretary of State directs, with a paper application only on a hardship exemption; the Index Department can be reached at 217-782-7017 or enotary@ilsos.gov with questions about that policy.

Step 2 — Complete the 3-hour course with a Secretary of State–certified provider

Choose a provider certified by the Secretary of State — no person may operate as a provider without the Secretary’s certification (section 176.210(a)), and the Secretary must provide each provider’s contact information on its official website (section 176.210(c)). The course is 3 hours of instruction with a minimum of 180 minutes, and the rules allow a maximum of 30 days to complete it (section 176.225(a)). Before instruction begins and any fees are collected, the provider must inform you of all fees or charges for the course (section 176.230(a)) — course tuition is the provider’s charge, not an Illinois fee, and it varies by provider. During the course, the provider’s verification design runs as published: identity verification, timed progression through the material, and validation questions.

Step 3 — Pass the final examination at the completion of the course

The examination is the course’s closing component, administered by your certified provider in the format — paper or online — the provider has notified to the Department. It consists of 50 questions drawn from a test bank of a minimum of 100 questions, randomized, multiple-choice and true/false with no more than half true/false. In the rule’s form: a student must score at least 85% on the final examination. On the published figures, the arithmetic of that standard is that 43 of 50 questions must be answered correctly — 42 correct is 84% — printed here as arithmetic on the rule’s two figures, because the rule publishes the percentage and the question count, not a raw-count standard. If you score less than 85%, you must be re-tested using different questions from the test bank; you are not required to repeat the course, you may review the course before retaking, and the retake timing is by agreement between you and the provider. If you fail the comprehensive final examination 3 times, you have failed the course — and a student who fails may choose to take a different course before retaking the examination. On passing, you receive the certificate or other proof of successful completion that the application requires, and your two-year window to apply for the commission runs from the date of the examination.

Step 4 — Obtain the $5,000 surety bond, with the oath endorsed on it

An applicant who will perform only traditional, in-person notarizations purchases a $5,000 bond; an applicant who will also perform remote or electronic notarizations files an additional $25,000 bond or a combined $30,000 bond (section 176.340(b)). A copy of the original bond is filed with the Secretary of State’s Index Department. The bond carries the oath of office on its face: you endorse the oath on the face of the bond, immediately below it, signing the name under which you applied, exactly as it appears on the application (section 176.340(d)) — and the oath itself, filed with the Secretary of State, affirms your intent to follow the laws and constitutions of the United States and the State of Illinois (section 176.330(a)).

Step 5 — File the application online, with the course proof and the $15 Illinois fee

Illinois residents complete the application online, as the Secretary of State directs; the application includes, at a minimum, the information section 2-102 requires, together with the certificate or other proof of successful completion of the course of study and examination and the bond copy. No commission issues until the $15 appointment fee required by section 2-103 has been paid in full (section 176.320(a)) — and payment discipline matters on this route: if a payment is dishonoured or stopped, the Secretary of State may deny the commission, or revoke it if already granted, and the applicant must resubmit (section 176.320(b)). An incomplete application is retained for at least one year from receipt; if it is not completed within that year, the Secretary of State may deny it (section 176.300(e)).

Step 6 — Receive the commission certificate, obtain the official seal, and begin

On appointment, the Secretary of State sends the commission certificate (section 176.550(a)); present it to a vendor to obtain the official seal, which only the certificate authorises a vendor to provide. The Secretary of State’s published position governs the start: you can start notarizing documents once the commission has been approved and you have your official notary seal. The commission runs 4 years for an Illinois resident (1 year for a qualifying non-resident), expiring at midnight of the expiration date, with no grace period — an expired notary may not notarize while a new appointment is pending.

Step 7 — Renew on the same package: notice at about 60 days, reappointment inside the window

The Secretary of State’s office sends a renewal notice about 60 days before the appointment expires, and renewal is online. Under section 176.350, a current notary may apply for reappointment 60 days before the existing commission expires — the new commission’s date is the day immediately after the current expiration — and should apply at least 30 days before expiration to prevent a gap. Renewal is not an exemption from the package: a renewing applicant completes the course of study and passes the examination again, under section 2-101.5(a), unless the renewal-only statement route applies — the renewing licensed attorney or judge, or the person employed by a licensed attorney or the court, who files the signed statement of having read and understood the Act in effect at the time of application (section 2-101.5(c); section 176.205(e)). The proof of completion from the course behind a live commission remains valid for the duration of that four-year commission (section 176.205(a)); it does not carry past it.

What makes this package demanding

The demand is the combination of a high line, a closed syllabus, and a course-failure consequence. The final examination is built so its answers may not be easily determined without having participated in the entire course — the rules say so in terms — so the paper cannot be treated as a general-knowledge quiz bolted onto a course the candidate skimmed: the timed, verified progression through 180 minutes is itself part of the gate, and the examination samples a bank of at least 100 questions in randomized 50-question forms with different questions on every re-test. The line is at least 85% — on a 50-question paper, the arithmetic leaves at most seven questions wrong. And the attempts structure is unforgiving in a specific way: three failures of the comprehensive final examination are not three spent sittings, they are a failed course — the student starts the package over, or takes a different course before retaking. Around the sitting, the clocks punish drift: 30 days maximum to complete the course once begun, and two years from the examination date to apply before the pass ages out.

The credential at work

The Illinois commission is held across the state’s banks and credit unions, law offices, title and real estate closings, healthcare and government counters, and Cook County and downstate business paperwork alike — anywhere a signature must be witnessed, acknowledged, or sworn before a commissioned public official rather than a party to the transaction. It is a four-year, renewable public appointment, verifiable through the Secretary of State, held by a notary whose training is current by construction: because the course + examination package repeats at every renewal, an Illinois commission in force is also evidence that its holder completed the package within the current cycle. The separate electronic notary public commission is built on this base for notaries whose acts are performed electronically or remotely.

What the PassProfessor program will cover

Preparation for the examination in its own shape. The Illinois final examination is 50 questions drawn from a bank of at least 100, closed by a standard of at least 85%, with different questions on every re-test and a failed course after three failures — and the program in the works prepares in that shape: randomized 50-question sets scored against the 85% line, varied across sittings as the provider’s bank varies its forms, so that a candidate meets the provider’s paper already practised at passing varied forms rather than one memorised one. PassProfessor is a preparation provider only: it is not a Secretary of State–certified course provider, and completing this program does not satisfy the course of study requirement — the certified course must still be taken, and this program prepares the candidate to pass its final examination.

Written from the primary sources. The program is written from the Illinois Notary Public Act, 5 ILCS 312, from 14 Ill. Adm. Code Part 176 — Subpart C for the course and examination, Subpart D for the application, bond, and oath — and from the Secretary of State’s Notary Services publications: the qualifications, the package’s structure, the retake and course-failure rules, and the renewal recurrence. Where a figure in circulation cannot be verified in those sources — an examination time limit, topic weights — the program prints none and says so.

The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the practice, the program carries the route as the Secretary of State publishes it — qualifications and the online application, the certified course and its 30-day completion window, the bond in the applied-for name with the oath endorsed on its face, the $15 Illinois appointment fee, the commission certificate before any seal is obtained, and the renewal cycle on which the whole package repeats — because on this route the sequence and clock failures are as fatal as the knowledge failures.

Preparation only. This is preparation for the final examination of a course of study required by the Illinois Secretary of State. PassProfessor is not affiliated with the Secretary of State, is not a certified course of study provider, and nothing in the program substitutes for the certified course, its examination, the bond, the application, or any commission requirement.

Tell me when enrollment opens. The Illinois 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

Who commissions an Illinois notary public?

The Illinois Secretary of State. The Index Department appoints and commissions active notaries public in Illinois and administers the Illinois Notary Public Act; residents are commissioned for 4 years, and qualifying non-residents of bordering states for 1 year.

Is the Illinois examination a separate test I book at a testing center?

No. Illinois is a course + examination package state. Under section 2-101.5 of the Act, you complete the course of study required by the Secretary of State and pass an examination at the completion of the course. The final examination is administered by your Secretary of State–certified course provider, in the paper or online format the provider has notified to the Department — there is no standalone Secretary of State sitting to book.

What score passes the final examination?

In the rule’s published form: “A student must score at least 85% on the final examination” (14 Ill. Adm. Code 176.235(c)(4)). The examination is 50 questions drawn from a test bank of a minimum of 100 questions.

What happens if I score below 85%?

You must be re-tested using different questions from the test bank. You are not required to repeat the course, you may review the course before retaking, and the retake may be taken at any time by agreement with your provider. If you fail the comprehensive final examination 3 times, you have failed the course; a student who fails may choose to take a different course before retaking the examination.

How long is the course, and how long do I have to finish it?

Three hours of instruction — a minimum of 180 minutes — from a certified provider, with a maximum of 30 days allowed for a student to complete the course (14 Ill. Adm. Code 176.225(a)).

Do renewing notaries have to take the course and examination too?

Yes. Section 2-101.5(a) covers applicants applying for the first time and applicants applying to renew, as a notary public or as an electronic notary public, and the package has applied since January 1, 2024. The single exception is the renewal-only statement route described below.

I am an attorney. Am I exempt from the course and examination?

Only at renewal, and only in the statute’s exact scope. Under section 2-101.5(c), an applicant to renew is not required to complete the course or pass the examination if the applicant submits the prescribed signed statement that the applicant is a licensed attorney or judge or is employed by a licensed attorney or the court, and has read and understood the version of the Act in effect at the time of application. The rule form (section 176.205(e)) specifies a licensed attorney in good standing with the Attorney Registration and Discipline Commission, a current Illinois court or federal court judge, or employment by such an attorney or an Illinois or federal court. The subsection by its terms addresses a renewing applicant; it does not cover a first-time applicant.

How long is my passing result good for?

You have two years from the date of the examination to apply for a commission. Once the commission has issued, the certificate or other proof of completion remains valid for the duration of the four-year commission (14 Ill. Adm. Code 176.205(a)).

What bond is required, and what does the state charge?

A $5,000 surety bond if you will perform only traditional, in-person notarizations; an applicant who will also perform remote or electronic notarizations files an additional $25,000 bond or a combined $30,000 bond. The state’s appointment fee is $15 to the Secretary of State under section 2-103. Course tuition is separate: it is charged by the certified provider, disclosed before instruction begins, and is not an Illinois fee.

What may an Illinois notary charge the public?

Under section 3-104: a maximum of $5 for any non-electronic notarial act, up to $25 for an act performed pursuant to section 3-102, and up to $25 for an electronic notarial act. A notary need not charge a fee, must not exceed the maximum, and must tell the requestor the fee before performing the act.

Must an Illinois notary keep a journal?

Yes — Illinois requires a journal of notarial acts under section 3-107 of the Act and the journal rules at Part 176, Subpart J. The journal regime is part of the Act and rules the certified course must teach.

Is the electronic notary public commission part of this package?

It shares the course + examination statute but it is a separate commission with its own application, its own additional bond tier for remote or electronic acts, and its own electronic notarization system provider requirements. This program covers the base Illinois Notary Public commission and its course final examination; the electronic commission’s facts are stated separately in the companion guide as a boundary, not merged into this route.

Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Illinois Secretary of State, or a certified course provider?

No on both. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Illinois Secretary of State, and it is not a Secretary of State–certified course of study provider. The program confers no commission, satisfies no course requirement, and reports nothing to the Secretary of State.