The Pennsylvania Notary Public examination is the proctored, computer-based examination administered for the Pennsylvania Department of State by its examination vendor, Pearson VUE, that every applicant who does not hold a current and unexpired Pennsylvania notary public commission must pass. It is based on the mandatory three-hour basic education course of study — the statutes, regulations, procedures, and ethics relevant to notarial acts under the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (RULONA), 57 Pa.C.S. Chapter 3 — and the Department’s regulations require a scaled score of 75 or higher to pass. The examination costs $65 per test, an applicant has six months from authorization to pass it, and a timely renewal filed while a commission is still current does not retake it — while a commission lapsed by even one day does.
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What this commission is
A Pennsylvania notary public is a public official appointed and commissioned by the Pennsylvania Department of State, through its Office of Notaries, Commissions and Legislation, to perform notarial acts in this Commonwealth for a term of four years. The office’s work is fraud deterrence at the point of signature: confirming the identity of signers, witnessing signatures, administering oaths and affirmations, and certifying copies, so that important transactions can be trusted. RULONA defines six notarial acts — taking an acknowledgment; administering an oath or affirmation; taking a verification on oath or affirmation; witnessing or attesting a signature; certifying or attesting a copy or deposition; and noting a protest of a negotiable instrument — and the commission authorises those acts and no others: it does not authorise the notary to draft legal records, give legal advice, practise law, or act as an immigration consultant.
Pennsylvania’s gate to that office has two locks, and this page states them at the top because third-party material routinely gets one or both wrong. First, education for everyone: every applicant — first-time and renewing alike — must complete at least three hours of Department-approved notary education within the six months immediately preceding the application, and the Department states in terms that there is no exemption to the mandatory education requirement. Second, an examination for everyone who does not currently hold an unexpired commission: first-time applicants, and every former notary whose commission has lapsed or expired when the reappointment application is received — even by just one day — must pass the Pearson VUE examination, even if they have passed it before. A notary who applies for reappointment while the commission is still active is the only applicant spared the examination, and that single timing distinction organises this entire route. The companion Pennsylvania Notary Public Exam Guide sets out the law, the route, and the sitting in detail.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Examination | Pennsylvania Notary Public examination — Pennsylvania Department of State, administered by the Department’s examination vendor, Pearson VUE |
| Commission | Notary public, appointed and commissioned by the Pennsylvania Department of State; term of four years; notarial acts may be performed in this Commonwealth |
| Governing law | Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (RULONA), 57 Pa.C.S. Chapter 3, and the Department’s regulations at 4 Pa. Code Part VIII, Subpart C, Chapters 161, 163, and 167 (regulations effective March 28, 2026) |
| Who must take it | Every applicant who does not hold a current and unexpired Pennsylvania notary public commission at the time the application is received — all first-time applicants, and all applicants whose previous commission has lapsed or expired, even by one day |
| Who does not take it | An applicant for reappointment who applies while the current commission is still active. There is no other examination exemption in the Department’s published rules — attorneys included: no applicant category is exempted from the examination or from the mandatory education on the basis of a law licence |
| Format | A proctored computer-based examination, per the Department’s regulations. The Department and Pearson VUE do not publish a question count or a time limit in the sources read, and this page prints neither |
| Content | Based on the basic education course of study, which must cover the statutes, regulations, procedures, and ethics relevant to notarial acts, with a core curriculum including the duties and responsibilities of the office of notary public and electronic notarization |
| Passing standard | In the Department’s published form: an applicant shall attain a scaled score of 75 or higher to pass the examination (4 Pa. Code § 167.15(d)(1)). A scaled score is not a percentage, and this page prints no percentage conversion |
| Examination fee | $65 per test, charged by Pearson VUE — a third-party vendor fee, separate from the Pennsylvania application fee |
| Window and retakes | Six months from the time the applicant is authorized to sit for the examination to pass it; the examination may be retaken within that period, but no more than one time per 24-hour period. Examination results are valid for one year from the date of the examination |
| Delivery | At Pearson VUE test centers in nearly all Pennsylvania counties, with a one-time attempt opportunity to take the examination from home or office under the Department’s online testing procedures; if that initial online attempt fails, subsequent testing must be taken at an approved Pearson VUE testing center |
| Education | At least three hours of Department-approved (preapproved) notary education within the six months immediately preceding the application — basic education for an initial appointment, continuing education for a reappointment. No exemption exists |
| Application fee | Pennsylvania fee: $42, nonrefundable, payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — this amount includes the application fee for the commission and the fee for filing the bond with the Department |
| Administrator | Pennsylvania Department of State, Office of Notaries, Commissions and Legislation; examination vendor Pearson VUE. PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Department of State or with Pearson VUE |
What the examination covers
The Department describes the content by its source: the examination is based on the basic education course of study, which must cover the statutes, regulations, procedures, and ethics relevant to notarial acts, with a core curriculum including the duties and responsibilities of the office of notary public and electronic notarization. The Department publishes no topic weights, so the areas below follow that course of study as RULONA and the 2026 regulations organise it.
Appointment, qualifications, and the commission itself
57 Pa.C.S. sections 321 to 323 and 4 Pa. Code sections 167.11 to 167.18: who may be appointed (18 or older; a citizen or permanent legal resident of the United States; a resident of Pennsylvania or a person with a place of employment or practice in this Commonwealth; able to read and write English; not disqualified under the sanctions provisions), the $42 application, the four-year term, the bond, oath, signature registration, and recording duties that follow appointment, and the character standard — the honesty, integrity, competence, and reliability to act as a notary public — with its five-year presumption of ineligibility for a felony or a fraud, dishonesty, or deceit offence. Candidates treat this as preamble; it is examinable law with exact figures and deadlines throughout.
The six notarial acts and their requirements
The definition at the centre of RULONA: taking an acknowledgment; administering an oath or affirmation; taking a verification on oath or affirmation; witnessing or attesting a signature; certifying or attesting a copy or deposition; and noting a protest of a negotiable instrument — with the requirements for certain acts (identity and signature determinations for acknowledgments, verifications, and witnessed signatures; completeness for certified copies; the dishonor matters for a protest), the personal appearance rule, and the separate regime for a notarial act performed for a remotely located individual by communication technology.
Identification, certificates, stamp, and journal
Identification of the individual by personal knowledge, by satisfactory evidence (a current, unexpired passport, driver’s license, or government-issued nondriver identification card; another current government identification bearing a signature or photograph and satisfactory to the notarial officer; or a credible witness’s verification on oath or affirmation), and the notary’s authority to refuse an act. The certificate of notarial act and the short form certificates. The official stamp — rectangular, at most 1 inch by 3½ inches, and for notaries appointed or reappointed on or after March 28, 2026 carrying, in order, “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — Notary Seal,” the notary’s name as commissioned and “Notary Public,” the county of office, the commission expiration date, and the seven-digit commission identification number. And the journal: chronological, contemporaneous entries for every act, in a bound register with numbered pages on paper or a tamper-evident electronic format, with the 2026 prohibition on recording personally identifiable information in it.
Fees, prohibited acts, electronic and remote notarization, and sanctions
Fees are fixed by the Department by regulation and are maximums: $5 for taking an acknowledgment (per the first name in the certificate; $2 per additional name in the same certificate), $5 for administering an oath or affirmation, $5 for taking a verification, $5 per signature for witnessing or attesting a signature, $5 per certified copy for certifying or attesting a copy or deposition, and $3 per page for noting a protest — with up to $20 per act additionally for an electronic or remote notarial act, an itemized receipt for all fees charged, and the records a notary may and may not certify a copy of under the 2026 regulations. The prohibited acts: no drafting legal records, legal advice, practice of law, or immigration consulting for compensation; no false or deceptive advertising; no use of the term “notario” or “notario publico” except by an attorney at law; and the advertising statement the law prescribes for a notary who is not an attorney. Electronic notarization on notice to the Department with an approved tamper-evident technology, and remote notarization by communication technology with identity proofing and an audio-visual recording retained for at least 10 years. Sanctions: denial, suspension, revocation, reprimand, or conditions, an administrative penalty of up to $1,000 per violation, and the criminal frame for impersonating a notary public.
The route, in order
Step 1 — Complete the mandatory education, inside its six-month window
Complete at least three hours of notary education from a provider preapproved by the Department — basic education for an initial appointment — within the six months immediately preceding your application, and keep the certificate of education: it is submitted with the application, and the Department audits proofs against provider rosters. Interactive and classroom instruction both qualify. There is no exemption to this requirement, for any applicant.
Step 2 — Apply to the Department of State, and be approved before any examination exists for you
Apply online through the Department’s notary application system (paper application is also available), with proof of the education and the $42 nonrefundable Pennsylvania application fee. Processing generally ranges from two to four weeks. The order is fixed and candidates reverse it at their cost: the examination may not be taken before the Department has received and approved the application, because the Department transmits the approved applicant’s information to Pearson VUE. Use the form of your name the Department’s rules allow — a first and last name, with a middle name or initial as the rules specify; initials alone and nicknames are not accepted, prefixes and suffixes denoting a professional or occupational title (including “Esquire”) may not form part of the commissioned name, and Pearson VUE requires your government identification to match the name on the application.
Step 3 — Pass the Pearson VUE examination inside the six-month authorization
Once approved and authorized, you have six months to pass. Schedule through Pearson VUE — at a test center in nearly all Pennsylvania counties, or, for one attempt only, from home or office under the Department’s online testing procedures; after a failed online attempt, all further attempts are at an approved test center. The fee is $65 per test. You may retake within the six-month period, but no more than once in any 24-hour period, and the standard is the Department’s published one: a scaled score of 75 or higher. Pearson VUE reports results electronically to the Department, and results are valid for one year from the examination date. Fail to pass inside the six months and the route restarts: retake the basic education course and reapply to the Department.
Step 4 — On appointment, complete the 45-day filings or the commission is null and void
Appointment starts a strict clock. Within 45 days after appointment, and before entering into the duties of the office, the appointee must obtain the surety bond — $25,000 for a notary newly appointed or reappointed on or after March 28, 2026, executed by an insurance company authorised to do business in this Commonwealth and covering acts performed during the term — take and subscribe the oath of office, record the bond, oath, and commission with the recorder of deeds of the county where the notary maintains an office, and register the official signature in the proper county office. Miss any of it inside the 45 days and the commission becomes null and void and the application process begins again. A notary may perform notarial acts only during the period in which a valid bond is on file with the Department.
Step 5 — Serve the four-year term, and renew before it ends
The commission expires four years after the date of appointment, and there is no limit on consecutive terms. Reappointment repeats the education and application steps — at least three hours of Department-approved continuing education within the six months before applying, and the $42 fee — and the Department directs applicants for reappointment to file at least two to three months before expiration (a renewal application may be submitted up to 90 days before expiration, and must be submitted before it). File while the commission is active and there is no examination. Let the application be received even one day after expiration and the examination is required again, in full, even by a notary who has passed it before — and the lapsed applicant must meet the initial-appointment requirements, basic education included.
What makes this examination demanding
The demand is precision inside a short syllabus with hard clocks around it. The syllabus is finite — one statute, one set of regulations, one mandatory course — but it is written in exact numbers that items are built to separate: three hours and six months; $42 and $65; six months to pass and 24 hours between attempts; a scaled score of 75; 45 days to record; four years to a term; $25,000 of bond; $5, $2, and $3 fee maximums; a stamp no larger than 1 inch by 3½ inches. Candidates who know the law approximately know several of those numbers wrong, and approximate knowledge is what the distractors are made of. The 2026 regulations add a second trap: material prepared before March 28, 2026 teaches a $10,000 bond, a stamp without a commission number, no witnessing-or-attesting fee, and journal entries the current rules prohibit — a candidate studying stale material is studying a repealed office. And the route itself fails more applicants than the questions do: education taken too early, an application filed after expiration, an authorization left to lapse, a bond recorded on day 46.
The credential at work
The Pennsylvania commission is held across the Commonwealth’s banks, law offices, real estate and vehicle-title businesses, healthcare and government offices, and independent signing work — anywhere a signature must be verified, sworn, or witnessed by a public official rather than a party to the transaction. It is a four-year, renewable public appointment valid throughout the Commonwealth, with a public database entry by which anyone may verify the notary’s authority, and — for notaries who notify the Department and use approved technology — the ability to perform electronic and remote notarial acts as well as traditional ones.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Practice in the examination’s own shape. The program in the works practises in the sitting’s shape: proctored, computer-based conditions, timed, built on the basic education course of study the examination is based on — the statutes, regulations, procedures, and ethics of RULONA — because that course of study, and nothing broader or narrower, is the Department’s stated source.
Written from the primary sources. The program is written from the Department’s own publications — RULONA at 57 Pa.C.S. Chapter 3, the Department’s regulations at 4 Pa. Code Chapter 167, its examination, education, and application pages, and Pearson VUE’s Pennsylvania Notary page — and teaches the current law, including the regulations effective March 28, 2026. Where a figure in circulation cannot be verified in those sources — a question count, a time limit, a percentage rendering of the scaled standard — the program prints none and says so.
The first-time, timely-renewal, and lapsed split, taught exactly. The program separates the three applicant positions the Department separates — first-time (education, application, examination), timely reappointment (continuing education and application, no examination), and lapsed (initial-appointment requirements again, examination included, even after one day) — because most route failures, and a share of examination items, live on those boundaries.
The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the practice, the program carries the route as the Department publishes it — the six-month education window, approval before scheduling, the six-month authorization and 24-hour retake rule, the one-year life of a result, the $25,000 bond and the 45-day recording clock, the stamp and journal rules, and the renewal filing window — because on this route the administrative failures are as fatal as the knowledge failures.
Preparation only. This is preparation for an examination administered for the Pennsylvania Department of State by Pearson VUE. PassProfessor is not affiliated with the Department of State or with Pearson VUE, and nothing in the program substitutes for the mandatory education course, the examination, the application, the bond, or any commission requirement. The mandatory education course itself must be taken from a Department-approved provider; this preparation program is not that course.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The Pennsylvania 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 has to take the Pennsylvania Notary Public examination?
Every applicant who does not hold a current and unexpired Pennsylvania notary public commission at the time the application is received by the Department of State: all first-time applicants, and all former notaries whose commissions have lapsed or expired — even by just one day — including notaries who have passed the examination before.
I am renewing. Do I retake the examination?
Not if your application for reappointment is received while your commission is still active: a timely renewal completes at least three hours of Department-approved continuing education and reapplies, with no examination. The Department directs renewing notaries to file at least two to three months before expiration. If the application is received after expiration, the examination is required again.
I am an attorney. Am I exempt from the examination or the course?
No exemption on that basis appears in the Department’s published rules. The mandatory education page states that there is no exemption to the education requirement, and the only examination position the Department publishes is holding a current and unexpired commission. An attorney applying for a first commission, or after a lapse, follows the same route as any other applicant: three hours of approved education, the $42 application, and the Pearson VUE examination. (Separately, an attorney at law is excepted from RULONA’s bar on using the term “notario” or “notario publico” and from its prescribed not-an-attorney advertising statement — an advertising rule, not a commissioning exemption.)
What is the passing score?
In the Department’s published form: an applicant shall attain a scaled score of 75 or higher to pass the examination (4 Pa. Code § 167.15(d)(1)). It is a scaled score, not a percentage correct, and figures elsewhere that render it as a percentage — or that state a different standard — are not the Department’s published form.
What does the examination cost, and how many times may I take it?
The examination costs $65 per test, charged by Pearson VUE. Within the six-month period from authorization, you may take it as many times as needed, but no more than one time per 24-hour period. If you do not pass within the six months, you must retake the basic education course and reapply.
Can I take the examination from home?
For one attempt: the Department’s examination page provides a one-time attempt opportunity to take the examination from home or office under its online testing procedures. If that initial attempt fails, subsequent testing must be taken at an approved Pearson VUE testing center. Test centers operate in nearly all Pennsylvania counties.
How long is the mandatory course, and when must I take it?
At least three hours, from a Department-preapproved provider, completed within the six months immediately preceding the application — basic education for an initial appointment, continuing education for a reappointment. Courses may be interactive or classroom instruction and must include the core curriculum on the duties and responsibilities of the office and electronic notarization.
What are the Pennsylvania fees on this route?
The application fee is $42, nonrefundable, payable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (it includes the bond filing fee with the Department). The examination is $65 per test, charged by Pearson VUE. The surety bond premium is paid to the surety or insurer, not to the Commonwealth — the bond itself is $25,000 for notaries appointed or reappointed on or after March 28, 2026. Course fees are set by the approved education providers.
What happens after I am appointed?
Within 45 days of appointment you must obtain the bond, take and subscribe the oath of office, record the bond, oath, and commission with the recorder of deeds of your county of office, and register your official signature in the proper county office. If those steps are not completed within the 45 days, the commission becomes null and void and the process begins again. The term itself is four years.
How much may a Pennsylvania notary charge?
The Department fixes maximum fees by regulation: $5 for an acknowledgment (first name; $2 for each additional name in the same certificate), $5 to administer an oath or affirmation, $5 for a verification on oath or affirmation, $5 per signature for witnessing or attesting a signature, $5 per certified copy for certifying or attesting a copy or deposition, and $3 per page for noting a protest — plus up to $20 per act for an electronic or remote notarial act. An itemized receipt must be provided for all fees charged.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Department of State or Pearson VUE?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Pennsylvania Department of State or with Pearson VUE. The program confers no commission and reports nothing to the Department.