The Utah Notary Public test is the online examination administered by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor through notary.utah.gov that every applicant for a Utah notary public commission must pass. In the Lieutenant Governor’s published form: there are 35 multiple choice questions with a total of 65 points available — 10 questions are worth 4 points and 25 questions are worth 1 point — and you must pass with 61 points or higher in order to apply for your notary commission. The applicant pays a total of $95 after completing the test ($55 administration fee and $40 test fee), files a $5,000 bond and a notarized oath of office, and holds a four-year commission. Utah requires no education course for this commission, and Utah has no renewal: when the commission expires, the whole route is taken again.
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What this commission is
A Utah notary public is a public official commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Utah — Utah’s notary program is administered by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, not by a secretary of state — to perform notarial acts anywhere in Utah for a term of four years, under the Notaries Public Reform Act, Utah Code Title 46, Chapter 1. The office’s work is fraud deterrence at the point of signature. Utah Code section 46-1-6 authorises five notarial acts, and no others: a jurat; an acknowledgment; a signature witnessing; a copy certification; and an oath or affirmation. The commission does not authorise the notary to give legal advice, and a non-attorney notary is barred by section 46-1-11 from providing advice or counsel concerning legal documents or legal proceedings, including immigration matters.
Utah’s gate to that office is a single weighted test with an unusually narrow margin, and this page states its structure at the top because third-party material routinely flattens it into an ordinary percentage examination. It is not one. Of the 65 points available, 40 ride on just 10 questions — the questions the Lieutenant Governor’s handbook treats as the fundamentals — and a candidate may lose no more than 4 points in total and still reach 61. Around the test sit the rest of the statutory gate: the qualifications in section 46-1-3, a mandatory background check, a $5,000 bond executed by a licensed surety, and a notarized oath of office, all filed through the one online portal. One further layer is current law that older study material does not contain: under S.B. 139 (2026 General Session), effective May 6, 2026, a notary who receives a commission on or after that date is required to keep a notary journal — so every candidate who passes this test now is commissioned straight into the journal regime. The companion Utah Notary Public Exam Guide sets out the law, the route, and the sitting in detail.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Examination | Utah Notary Public test — Office of the Lieutenant Governor, taken online through notary.utah.gov |
| Commission | Notary public, commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor; term of four years; notarial acts may be performed in any part of Utah |
| Governing law | Notaries Public Reform Act, Utah Code Title 46, Chapter 1, as amended by S.B. 139 (2026 General Session, Chapter 56, effective May 6, 2026) |
| Who must take it | Every applicant for a notarial commission, including an applicant whose previous commission has expired — Utah has no renewal provision, so a new commission requires a new application and a passed test. No attorney exemption from the examination appears in the Lieutenant Governor’s published qualifications or in Utah Code section 46-1-3 |
| Format | 35 multiple choice questions, taken online through the applicant’s notary.utah.gov account. The Lieutenant Governor publishes no time limit for the test in the sources read, and this page prints none |
| Scoring | A total of 65 points is available: 10 questions are worth 4 points each and 25 questions are worth 1 point each |
| Passing standard | In the Lieutenant Governor’s published form: you must pass with 61 points or higher in order to apply for your notary commission. A weighted-points standard — this page prints no percentage rendering of it |
| Examination and administration fees | Utah fees, paid after completing the test: $95 in total — a $55 administration fee and a $40 test fee. The cost of the test is non-refundable. Results are provided instantly upon payment |
| Retakes | If you do not pass, you have 30 days from the date you first took the test to take it again for $40 per additional test; after 30 days the administration fee and testing fee of $95 are due again |
| Education | No education course is required. The Lieutenant Governor publishes the Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook as the study source; it reproduces Utah Code Title 46, Chapter 1 |
| Background check | Mandatory for all applicants (since November 1, 2019), submitted through the Lieutenant Governor’s office; the applicant is not notified of the results |
| Bond and oath | A $5,000 bond, executed by a licensed surety for the four-year term, and a constitutional oath of office, filed with and approved by the Lieutenant Governor; the commission is not effective until both are filed and approved |
| Administrator | Office of the Lieutenant Governor (Notary Office), State of Utah. PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor |
What the examination covers
The Lieutenant Governor publishes no topic weights for the test, and this page prints none. The study source is the Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook, which teaches the office through the text of Utah Code Title 46, Chapter 1 itself — so the areas below follow the Act as the handbook organises it. One structural fact the handbook does publish governs how to study all of them: its list of the top 10 mistakes made by notaries is presented expressly as preparation for the 4-point fundamental questions, the 10 questions that carry 40 of the 65 points.
The five notarial acts and the notarial certificate
Section 46-1-6 and the definitions in section 46-1-2: the jurat (a voluntary signature made in the notary’s presence under an oath or affirmation vouching for the truthfulness of the document), the acknowledgment (the signer admits in the notary’s presence to voluntarily signing for the document’s stated purpose), signature witnessing (the signer signs in the notary’s presence, with no oath), the copy certification (the copy is a true, exact, and unaltered photocopy of a document that is neither a public record nor a publicly recorded document), and the oath or affirmation itself. The distinctions among the three signature acts are the handbook’s second-listed mistake and the centre of the test. Every act is completed by a notarial certificate in substantially the form section 46-1-6.5 prescribes — never by signature and seal alone — and section 46-1-9 bars a certificate containing a statement known to be false or materially incomplete: omitting the notarial language, failing to name the appearing signer, and omitting where and when the act took place are the handbook’s first, fifth, and tenth mistakes.
Personal appearance and satisfactory evidence of identity
Title 46 allows no variation on personal appearance for an in-person act: the signer must be in the presence of the notary, and section 46-1-6 bars any act for an individual who is not. Identity is established by personal knowledge or by satisfactory evidence under section 46-1-2 — as amended by S.B. 139, an unexpired personal identification bearing the individual’s photograph, signature, and physical description, issued by the United States government, the government of a state, district, territory, or possession of the United States, a federally recognized tribal government, or a foreign government; an unexpired passport issued by any nation; or the oath or affirmation of a credible individual, in either of the two routes the amended definition provides. A driving privilege card is expressly not satisfactory evidence, and neither is a birth certificate, a marriage license, or a Social Security card. Failing to require proper identification is the handbook’s seventh mistake.
Disqualifications, impartiality, and prohibited acts
Section 46-1-7 disqualifies a notary from an act where the notary is a signer of or named in the document (with the self-proved will, licensed-attorney, and licensed-escrow-agent exceptions the section states), or will receive direct compensation from a financial or real property transaction in which the notary is named individually in one of the section’s listed capacities. Section 46-1-8 imposes impartiality: a notary may not influence a person to enter into or refuse a lawful transaction, and shall perform notarial acts in lawful transactions for any requesting person who tenders the appropriate fee — adopting policies that refuse lawful transactions, and refusing a document solely for its content, are the handbook’s sixth and eighth mistakes. Section 46-1-10 bars using the title or seal to endorse or promote any product or service; section 46-1-11 bars a non-attorney notary from legal advice, prescribes the not-an-attorney notice for advertising in a language other than English, and prohibits a literal translation of “notary public” that implies the notary is a licensed attorney.
Fees, the official seal, and the journal
Section 46-1-12 fixes maximum fees: $10 per signature for an acknowledgment, $10 per signature for a jurat, $10 per page certified for a certified copy, $10 per person for an oath or affirmation without a signature, and $10 for each signature witnessing — and a maximum of $25 for an act performed as part of a remote notarization — with a travel fee capped at the approved federal mileage rate, explained in advance as separate from the notarial fee and agreed in advance, and an English-language schedule of fees displayed. Section 46-1-16 governs the seal: purple ink for an in-person notarization, rendered in black for a remote notarization; the notary’s name exactly as on the commission, the words “notary public,” “state of Utah,” and “my commission expires on” with the expiration date, the commission number, a facsimile of the great seal of the state, inside a rectangular border no larger than one inch by two and one-half inches; the seal is the notary’s exclusive property, is never used independent of a notarial certificate, and is destroyed when the commission ends — leaving the seal and certificate with an employer on termination is the handbook’s ninth mistake, because the commission is the Lieutenant Governor’s, not the employer’s. The journal is now two regimes in one chapter: for a notary commissioned on or after May 6, 2026, section 46-1-13 requires a physical journal of every non-remote act (and a secure electronic journal of remote acts), kept in a secure location, retained for 10 years after the last entry and then destroyed, with the detailed entry contents of the new section 46-1-14.1 and the inspection rules of section 46-1-15; a notary commissioned before that date may keep a journal under the earlier provisions, and a remote notary has always been required to keep the electronic one.
Qualifications, liability, and the end of a commission
The route machinery is itself examinable law: the section 46-1-3 qualifications and application contents, the grounds on which the Lieutenant Governor may deny an application, the bond in section 46-1-4 (with the additional $5,000 of bond coverage a remote notary certification requires, for $10,000 of coverage in total), remote notarization under sections 46-1-3.5 to 46-1-3.7, liability in section 46-1-18 — a notary is liable for damage proximately caused by the notary’s misconduct, the surety’s liability is capped at the bond, and violating a provision of the chapter is a class B misdemeanor — revocation or suspension under section 46-1-19, the 30-day name and address change duties in section 46-1-20, and resignation under section 46-1-21, including the duty to resign on ceasing to reside or be employed in Utah.
The route, in order
Step 1 — Meet the qualifications, and study from the Lieutenant Governor’s handbook
To qualify under section 46-1-3 an individual must be at least 18 years old; be a United States citizen or have permanent resident status under Section 245 of the Immigration and Nationality Act; lawfully reside in Utah or be employed in the state for at least 30 days immediately before applying, and maintain that residency or employment during the commission; and be able to read, write, and understand English. An applicant must list any criminal convictions — including a plea of admission or no contest — for review by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, and an applicant who has been revoked or suspended as a notary needs the office’s expressed permission. No course stands between the applicant and the test: the study source is the Lieutenant Governor’s Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook. One caution belongs in this step, not later: the handbook’s current edition is dated 2022 and states on its face that it is not a substitute for Utah Code — the journal mandate, the unexpired-identification rule, and the credible-individual routes enacted by S.B. 139 in 2026 are in the Code and in the Lieutenant Governor’s current guidance, not in the handbook’s reproduced statute text.
Step 2 — Create the account, in the name the commission will carry
Create an account at notary.utah.gov and build the application there: the name used in the account is the name that will appear on the commission and the stamp, the business address and work telephone number are published in the notary search, and the application must contain no significant misstatement or omission of fact — it carries the name as it will appear on the commission, residential and business addresses, daytime telephone number, and date of birth, an affirmation that the qualifications are met, the criminal-conviction disclosure, and every issuance, denial, revocation, suspension, restriction, and resignation of a notarial commission or other professional license in any state. Answer the qualification questions as the Act requires: an answer not in accordance with Title 46, Chapter 1 does not permit the applicant to proceed. If your legal name has changed since a previous commission, the Lieutenant Governor directs you to create a new account rather than reuse the old one.
Step 3 — Take the test online, then pay the $95, and read the instant result
Review the application, then take the test through the account: 35 multiple choice questions, 65 points available, 10 questions worth 4 points and 25 worth 1 point. After completing the test, be ready to pay the $95 immediately — the $55 administration fee and the $40 test fee — because results are provided instantly upon payment, and the cost is non-refundable whether the result is a pass or a fail. The standard is the handbook’s: you must pass with 61 points or higher in order to apply for your notary commission. Passing the test does not automatically submit the application. If you do not pass, the retake clock runs from the date you first took the test: within 30 days, each additional test costs $40; after 30 days, the full $95 is due again.
Step 4 — Submit to the mandatory background check, and do not wait for it
Every applicant submits to the mandatory background check through the Lieutenant Governor’s office, in place since November 1, 2019. The office will not notify you when the background check has been processed — its instruction is to continue to the next step without waiting for results.
Step 5 — Obtain the $5,000 bond, have the oath of office notarized, and upload both
Obtain the $5,000 notarial bond from a licensed surety, running for the four-year term from the commission’s effective date: the name on the bond must match the name on the application exactly, and you must sign the bond as principal for it to be valid. Take the constitutional oath of office — the oath form typically comes with the bond — and have your signature on it notarized by another notary. Then upload the original signed bond and the notarized oath of office to the account. There is no final submit button: once the documents are uploaded, the application is complete. The commission itself is not effective until the oath is taken, the bond is filed, and both are approved by the Lieutenant Governor.
Step 6 — Receive the Certificate of Authority, then purchase the stamp and journal
On approval the office emails the Certificate of Authority of Notary Public. Only then purchase the notarial stamp and journal, through a third-party company — the notary office provides neither. The Lieutenant Governor’s homepage describes the full sequence as completable in just under two weeks. The stamp must meet section 46-1-16 exactly (purple ink, the prescribed words, the commission number, at most one inch by two and one-half inches), and a notary commissioned now is under the journal mandate from the first act: keep the physical journal in a secure location from the first notarization, not from the first time it is asked for.
Step 7 — Serve the four-year term, and reapply rather than renew
The commission runs four years from its effective date, statewide, and ends at expiration — after expiration you may not perform a notarial act until you hold a new commission. Utah has no provision to renew: the returning notary reapplies, using the existing username and password to update the information and take the test again, with a new application showing compliance with section 46-1-3, a new bond, and a new seal for the new commission. A remote notary certification is a separate layer on the commission — it requires an approved-vendor relationship, $10,000 of bond coverage in total, an electronic seal and signature from the vendor, and a separate $50 application fee to the Lieutenant Governor — and it must be reapplied for each time the underlying commission is re-sought.
What makes this examination demanding
The demand is the arithmetic. Sixty-five points are available and 61 are required, so the whole examination turns on 4 points of margin — and the points are not spread evenly. A single missed 4-point question consumes the entire margin: after it, every one of the remaining 34 questions must be answered correctly. Two missed 4-point questions end the sitting outright, at a maximum of 57. The near-miss shape is the one candidates least expect: nine of the ten 4-point questions right and twenty-four of the twenty-five 1-point questions right is a strong paper by any ordinary measure — and it totals 60 points, a fail by one point. Preparation therefore cannot be even. The fundamentals the handbook itself flags — the certificate’s required language, the differences among the jurat, the acknowledgment, and signature witnessing, personal appearance, naming the signer, proper identification — carry four times the weight of everything else, and they must be known exactly, because approximately right on a 4-point item is 4 points gone. Two further traps sit around the sitting rather than in it. The retake bargain is time-boxed: the $40 retake exists only inside 30 days from the first test date, after which the route costs the full $95 again — a candidate who drifts pays for the drift. And the study source has a dated edge: the handbook that teaches the test predates S.B. 139, so on the journal, on identification currency, and on credible individuals, the handbook’s reproduced statute text and the current Code now say different things, and the notary the candidate is about to become is governed by the Code.
The credential at work
The Utah commission is held across the state’s banks and credit unions, title and escrow offices, law offices, healthcare and government counters, real estate closings, and independent mobile-notary work — anywhere a signature must be sworn, acknowledged, or witnessed by a commissioned public official rather than a party to the transaction. It is a four-year, statewide public appointment, verifiable by anyone through the Lieutenant Governor’s notary search, and it is the base on which the separate remote notary certification is built for notaries whose signers appear by audio-video technology instead of in person.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Practice in the examination’s own shape. The program in the works practises in the sitting’s shape: 35 multiple choice questions at a time, scored the way the Lieutenant Governor scores them — 10 questions carrying 4 points and 25 carrying 1 point, against the line of 61 points or higher — so that a practice result reads in the same points the real result will, and a candidate learns to feel what a 4-point miss costs before it costs a commission.
Written from the primary sources. The program is written from the Lieutenant Governor’s own publications — the Process and Qualifications page, the Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook, the S.B. 139 guidance and journal document — and from Utah Code Title 46, Chapter 1 in its current form, including the amendments effective May 6, 2026. Where a figure in circulation cannot be verified in those sources — a time limit, a book rule for the sitting — the program prints none and says so.
The weighted fundamentals, taught at their weight. The handbook’s top 10 mistakes are presented by the Lieutenant Governor as preparation for the 4-point fundamental questions, and the program is built on that map: complete certificates, the three signature acts distinguished, personal appearance, the named signer, satisfactory evidence of identity, and the impartiality duty worked until they are exact, with the 1-point breadth of the Act — fees, seal, changes, liability, resignation — covered completely behind them.
The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the practice, the program carries the route as the Lieutenant Governor publishes it — the account in the commissioned name, pay-after-testing with instant results, the 30-day retake clock, the background check that reports nothing back, the bond-name match and the notarized oath, the Certificate of Authority before any stamp is bought, and reapplication in place of renewal — because on this route the sequence failures are as fatal as the knowledge failures.
Preparation only. This is preparation for an examination administered by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. PassProfessor is not affiliated with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, and nothing in the program substitutes for the test, the background check, the application, the bond, or any commission requirement.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The Utah 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 a Utah notary public?
The Lieutenant Governor of Utah. The notary program is administered by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor through notary.utah.gov; Utah has no secretary of state performing this function.
What is the passing score on the Utah Notary Public test?
In the Lieutenant Governor’s published form: there are 35 multiple choice questions with a total of 65 points available — 10 questions worth 4 points and 25 questions worth 1 point — and you must pass with 61 points or higher in order to apply for your notary commission. It is a weighted-points standard, stated here exactly as the handbook states it.
How much may I miss and still pass?
Four points in total. One missed 4-point question uses the entire margin; two end the attempt. Nine of ten 4-point questions and twenty-four of twenty-five 1-point questions correct totals 60 points — one point short.
What does the test cost, and when do I pay?
A total of $95, paid after you complete the test: a $55 administration fee and a $40 test fee. Results are provided instantly upon payment, and the cost is non-refundable. These are Utah fees charged by the Lieutenant Governor’s office, separate from any preparation program.
What happens if I fail?
You have 30 days from the date you first took the test to take it again for $40 per additional test. After 30 days, the administration fee and testing fee of $95 are due again. There is no published limit in the sources read on the number of retakes inside the 30-day window.
Is there a course I must take first?
No. Utah requires no education course for the commission. The Lieutenant Governor publishes the Utah Notary Public Study Guide and Handbook as the study source, and the application is built and the test taken online through notary.utah.gov.
I am an attorney. Am I exempt from the test?
No exemption on that basis appears in the Lieutenant Governor’s published qualifications or in Utah Code section 46-1-3: every applicant for a commission takes the examination. (Attorneys appear in the Act in narrower places — an attorney named in a document only as representing a signer is not disqualified from the act under section 46-1-7, the legal-advice bar in section 46-1-11 is addressed to a non-attorney notary, and notaries employed by an attorney, a law firm, or a title agency are excepted from the journal mandate for acts within that employment under section 46-1-13 — none of which is an examination exemption.)
How long is the commission, and how do I renew it?
Four years, statewide. Utah does not provide for renewal: after expiration you may not notarize until you hold a new commission, obtained by reapplying — updating your information under your existing account, taking and passing the test again, and filing a new bond and oath.
What bond is required?
A $5,000 bond executed by a licensed surety for the four-year term, filed with the Lieutenant Governor with the constitutional oath of office; the commission is not effective until both are filed and approved. A remote notary certification requires an additional $5,000 of bond coverage, for $10,000 in total, plus a separate $50 application fee.
Must a Utah notary keep a journal?
A notary who receives a commission on or after May 6, 2026 must: section 46-1-13, as amended by S.B. 139, requires a physical journal of every notarial act other than a remote notarization (with a secure electronic journal for remote acts), retained for 10 years after the last entry and then destroyed — subject to the attorney, law firm, and title agency employment exceptions in that section. A notary commissioned before that date may keep a journal under the earlier provisions; a remote notary’s electronic journal has been required throughout.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. The program confers no commission and reports nothing to the Lieutenant Governor.