How to Become a Notary in Georgia — Requirements & Fees

How to become a notary public in Georgia: a required course — verified from official sources.

Source-verified

Requirements below are drawn from Clerk of Superior Court of the county of application (appointing and commissioning authority), with the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA), Notary Division, maintaining the state-wide notary record and approving notary education (official site) and last verified August 12, 2026. Boards change fees and rules often — confirm before acting.

Requirements at a glance

Steps in the order GSCCCA publishes them (General Notary Information; Notary Public Application Form, 'The Application Process for New Appointments or for Reappointment in 4 Easy Steps'): (1) Complete the GSCCCA-approved notary training course and print the Certificate of Completion - mandatory for both new appointments and renewals since January 1, 2025. (2) Complete a notary application. Most counties participate in a web-based application at apps.gsccca.org/NotaryApplication/ - select your county, enter the 3-digit code shown, choose new or renewal, and print the packet; if your county is not in the list it does not participate and you must contact the Clerk of Superior Court for a paper application. (3) Obtain the required endorser signatures - two character references who live in the county of application, are at least 18, have known you more than 30 days, and are not related to you; they affirm by affidavit that you are 'a person of integrity and good moral character and is capable of performing notarial acts'. (4) Take the signed application, together with the training Certificate of Completion, to the Clerk of Superior Court in the county of application; pay the appointment fee and take the oath of office. The clerk's office then issues the notary certificate of appointment. (5) Purchase a notary seal - 'metal emboss type or rubber ink stamp' - from an office supply store or a notary trade association; the clerk issues 'a duplicate original of their Certificate of Appointment for presentment to a supplier of notary seals', and 'the presentment of such a duplicate to a supplier is necessary to obtain a notary seal'. Renewing notaries may reuse an existing seal only 'if the information on the seal matches exactly the information on the new commission'; some counties allow renewal by mail.

Legal basis

Clerk of Superior Court of the county of application (appointing and commissioning authority), with the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA), Notary Division, maintaining the state-wide notary record and approving notary education commissions notaries public in Georgia. Every figure below is verified against the commissioning authority’s own official pages and dated.

What it’s called

The statutory noun is a notary public COMMISSION - Georgia’s own words are ‘commissioned for a four-year term by the Clerk of Superior Court’ and ‘The Office of the Clerk of Superior Court approves and issues commissions of notary public’. The document you receive is a ’notary certificate of appointment’ (GSCCCA uses ‘appointment’ and ‘commission’ interchangeably; the Educational Rules are written entirely in terms of ‘Initial Appointment’ and ‘Renewal Appointment’). Folk terms, named as folk terms: ‘Georgia notary license’, ’notary certification’ and ‘getting notary certified’ are what applicants search for; Georgia issues no licence and no certification - it issues a commission by oath before a county officer. One folk term names something that does not exist in Georgia at all: a ’notary commission number’ - ‘Georgia does not issue commission numbers to notary public appointments. Any numbers that appear on a notary certificate of appointment are internal database identifiers and are not to be used as state-issued commission numbers.’ Two further folk terms name a private product, not a Georgia credential: ’notary signing agent’ and ’loan signing agent’ are vendor-sold designations; no Georgia source read on 2026-08-12 mentions either, and the Clerk of Superior Court appoints no such officer.

Types of notary commission

Notary public commission (traditional / paper) — A Georgia resident applying in the county of residence, or a legal resident of a state bordering Georgia who is regularly employed or carries on a business or profession in Georgia, applying in the Georgia county of employment The only notary credential Georgia issues. Appointed by the Clerk of Superior Court for a four-year term; the clerk issues a ’notary certificate of appointment’. Statewide jurisdiction. Georgia issues NO commission number: ‘Georgia does not issue commission numbers to notary public appointments. Any numbers that appear on a notary certificate of appointment are internal database identifiers and are not to be used as state-issued commission numbers’ (GSCCCA FAQ).
Electronic notary (eNotary) - NOT a separate Georgia credential — No one; Georgia does not issue a separate electronic-notary commission or registration Sourced negative. No electronic-notary application, registration, technology-provider approval or fee appears anywhere in the GSCCCA notary pages read on 2026-08-12 (General Notary Information incl. the full 24-question FAQ, Georgia Notary Law, Notary Public Application Form, Public Education Rules and the Notary Public Educational Rules PDF), nor in the text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292 (2024).
Remote online notary (RON) - NOT authorized in Georgia — No one as of 2026-08-12 See ron_status / ron_detail. Pending bill HB 289 (2025-2026 session) would create O.C.G.A. 45-17-8.5 and a GSCCCA-appointed ‘remote online notary public’, but by its own SECTION 3-1 it takes effect only ‘upon its approval by the Governor’, and hb-289 does not appear on the Governor’s signed-legislation lists for 2025 or 2026.

Who can be commissioned

GSCCCA publishes the qualifications identically on the General Notary Information page and in FAQ #1: ‘Be at least 18 years old. Be a citizen of the United States or a legal resident of the United States. Be a legal resident of the county in which he or she applies (or, if a non-Georgia resident, you must reside in a state bordering Georgia and carry on a business or profession in Georgia or be regularly employed in the Georgia county of application). Have, and provide at the time of application, the applicant’s operating telephone number. Be able to read and write English. Complete the notary training course.’ Two non-relative endorsers resident in the county of application are additionally required as part of the application (FAQ, ‘What is an endorser on the notary public application?’). RESIDENCY NEXUS, precisely: a Georgia resident ‘may only apply in your county of residence’; an out-of-state applicant must reside in a state bordering Georgia AND be regularly employed or carry on a business or profession in Georgia, and ‘may only apply to the Clerk of Superior Court in the county of his or her employment’. LEGAL PRESENCE: ‘a citizen of the United States or a legal resident of the United States’ - Georgia’s published qualification does not require citizenship. CRIMINAL HISTORY: no criminal-history bar, background check, fingerprinting or good-standing disclosure is published in any tier searched on 2026-08-12 (statute text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292 read in full; GSCCCA Georgia Notary Law page; the 24-question GSCCCA FAQ; the application-process page; the Notary Public Educational Rules PDF). The only character screen published is the two-endorser affidavit. Note that the full text of O.C.G.A. Chapter 45-17 outside section 45-17-8 could not be read - Georgia’s official code has no free public HTML publisher - so a qualification stated elsewhere in the chapter would not have been visible.

Requirements

Steps in the order GSCCCA publishes them (General Notary Information; Notary Public Application Form, ‘The Application Process for New Appointments or for Reappointment in 4 Easy Steps’): (1) Complete the GSCCCA-approved notary training course and print the Certificate of Completion - mandatory for both new appointments and renewals since January 1, 2025. (2) Complete a notary application. Most counties participate in a web-based application at apps.gsccca.org/NotaryApplication/ - select your county, enter the 3-digit code shown, choose new or renewal, and print the packet; if your county is not in the list it does not participate and you must contact the Clerk of Superior Court for a paper application. (3) Obtain the required endorser signatures - two character references who live in the county of application, are at least 18, have known you more than 30 days, and are not related to you; they affirm by affidavit that you are ‘a person of integrity and good moral character and is capable of performing notarial acts’. (4) Take the signed application, together with the training Certificate of Completion, to the Clerk of Superior Court in the county of application; pay the appointment fee and take the oath of office. The clerk’s office then issues the notary certificate of appointment. (5) Purchase a notary seal - ‘metal emboss type or rubber ink stamp’ - from an office supply store or a notary trade association; the clerk issues ‘a duplicate original of their Certificate of Appointment for presentment to a supplier of notary seals’, and ’the presentment of such a duplicate to a supplier is necessary to obtain a notary seal’. Renewing notaries may reuse an existing seal only ‘if the information on the seal matches exactly the information on the new commission’; some counties allow renewal by mail.

Training

Georgia requires a training course.

REQUIRED for every applicant, new and renewing, since January 1, 2025. Statutory text, O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(h)(1) as added by 2024 HB 1292 (Act 529), read in the signed act: ‘A notary public shall complete an educational training class relating to the duties of notaries public as provided for in this chapter. Such training shall be completed prior to the initial appointment and within 30 days prior to each subsequent renewal appointment.’ Subsection (h)(2) authorizes GSCCCA to adopt implementing rules. GSCCCA adopted the ‘Notary Public Educational Rules for the State of Georgia’ (Version 2024-10-09) by board action on October 9, 2024, effective January 1, 2025; those rules are only three rules long: Rule 1 - ‘Any educational training class related to the duties of Georgia’s notaries public for the purpose of being appointed a notary public shall be approved by the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority’; Rule 2 - ‘Upon successful completion of the course, the notary applicant will be provided a certificate of completion’; Rule 3 - the applicant submits that certificate with the application to the Clerk of Superior Court. GSCCCA’s own approved course is at elearn.gsccca.org and GSCCCA links to it as the ‘Free Web-Based Notary Training Course’. NO HOUR COUNT IS PUBLISHED: neither the statute nor the Educational Rules nor the FAQ states a number of hours, a validity window for the certificate other than the 30-day pre-renewal rule, or a passing score. The course itself sits behind a login (elearn.gsccca.org returns only a login/sign-up screen to an unauthenticated fetch), so course length and any embedded quiz could not be read. GSCCCA posted a notice on that login page: ‘We are updating our Notary Public course on 12/01/2025. Any incomplete coursework will be lost after the update… Learners who have already completed the course or are existing notaries will not be affected.’ Definitions that control the timing (Educational Rules Section 5): ‘Initial Appointment means the first time an individual is appointed as a notary public or the first appointment after a notary appointment has expired’; ‘Renewal Appointment means an appointment granted within 30 days prior to expiration of the current appointment’ - so a lapsed notary is treated as an initial applicant.

Exam

Georgia does not require an exam.

SOURCED NEGATIVE. Georgia publishes no notary examination. No exam, test, assessment, passing score, proctoring rule or exam fee appears in any of the tiers searched on 2026-08-12: (1) statute - the full text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by 2024 HB 1292 (Act 529), read in the signed act PDF, which contains the education mandate in subsection (h) and no examination; (2) administrative rule - the GSCCCA ‘Notary Public Educational Rules for the State of Georgia’ (effective 1/1/2025), whose three rules provide only for course approval, a certificate of completion, and its presentation to the clerk, with no assessment; (3) agency page - GSCCCA’s ‘Georgia Notary Law’ and ‘General Notary Information’ pages; (4) FAQ and application form - the 24-question GSCCCA Notary Public FAQ, including ‘What type of training or educational materials are available and does Georgia require mandatory training?’, which answers with the training class only, and the 4-step application-process page, whose steps are course, application, clerk/oath/fee, seal. CAVEAT A VERIFIER SHOULD TEST: the mandatory GSCCCA course is login-walled, so whether it ends in a graded quiz could not be observed. Rule 2 of the Educational Rules says a certificate issues ‘upon successful completion of the course’, which implies a completion standard but names no score. If GSCCCA’s course does contain a graded assessment, this field should move to a ‘completion assessment inside the required course’ framing rather than to a standalone licensing exam - Georgia has no standalone notary licensing examination in any published tier.

Bond & insurance

NO BOND. GSCCCA answers this as its own FAQ question, verbatim: ‘Are Georgia notaries required to be bonded? No bond is required of Georgia notaries.’ No surety bond amount, term, filing office or approved-surety rule exists because there is no bond. ERRORS AND OMISSIONS INSURANCE: also not required, and not merely unmentioned - no E&O, liability-insurance or minimum-coverage requirement appears in any tier searched on 2026-08-12 (O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292, read in full; GSCCCA Georgia Notary Law page; the 24-question FAQ; the application-process page; the Notary Public Educational Rules). E&O is a product notary vendors sell; Georgia’s commissioning authority requires neither it nor a bond. Beware any source claiming a Georgia notary bond - Georgia is one of the states where the bond-selling trade has no statutory hook at all.

Fees

APPLICATION / APPOINTMENT FEE: $40.00 to $55.00, set by the county, for a new appointment or for reappointment. GSCCCA states it three times in identical words - on the General Notary Information page, in FAQ ‘What is the fee to become a notary public?’, and at the top of the Notary Public Application Form page: ‘The fee for a new notary appointment or for reappointment is $40.00 - $55.00. Please check with the county in which you are applying for the exact fee.’ The fee is paid at the Clerk of Superior Court’s office at the time the oath is administered, not online. TRAINING COURSE: GSCCCA links its approved course as the ‘Free Web-Based Notary Training Course’ - no fee published. SEAL: bought privately from ‘an office supply store or from a notary trade association’; price is not state-set and Georgia publishes none. RON REGISTRATION FEE: none - Georgia has no RON. ELECTRONIC-NOTARY FEE: none - Georgia has no separate electronic commission. WHY THE ‘READ THE LIVE FORM’ CHECK CANNOT BE RUN IN GEORGIA: because the appointment fee is county-set and collected at the counter, there is no statewide application form carrying a printed fee to compare against a code figure. The web-based application at apps.gsccca.org/NotaryApplication/ is county-selected and gated behind a 3-digit code challenge, so a per-county fee figure was not read on 2026-08-12; the $40-$55 range is GSCCCA’s own published range, and no individual county fee schedule was fetched. A verifier wanting a hard number must pull one named county’s Clerk of Superior Court fee schedule and attribute it to that county only.

How long the commission lasts, and renewing it

4 Four-year term (‘A notary commission is for a four-year term’, GSCCCA FAQ; ‘Each commission is for a term of four years and may be renewed prior to the expiration of the notary’s term of office’, GSCCCA Georgia Notary Law). Renewal is a REAPPOINTMENT by the same Clerk of Superior Court, using the renewal application, and ‘a renewing notary is defined as someone who holds an active notary commission in the county of application’. EARLY-RENEWAL WINDOW: ‘Typically a notary may submit a renewal application no more than 30 days prior to the current term expiration date’ - and the education rule matches it, requiring training ‘within 30 days prior to each subsequent renewal appointment’, with GSCCCA’s Educational Rules defining a ‘Renewal Appointment’ as one ‘granted within 30 days prior to expiration of the current appointment’. A notary who lets the commission expire is treated as an initial applicant (’the first appointment after a notary appointment has expired’ is an Initial Appointment). NOTICE: ‘If you provide the GSCCCA with an e-mail address, a renewal notification will be sent thirty days prior to expiration.’ RENEWAL BY MAIL: ‘Some counties allow notaries to renew by mail. Contact your Clerk of Superior Court’s office for specific details.’ MOVING COUNTIES DOES NOT TRANSFER THE COMMISSION: ‘No. Your commission continues in the county of appointment until your current term expires. You must notify the appointing clerk within thirty days of the change… Within 30 days of term expiration, you may submit a new notary application to the clerk’s office in the new county of residence.’ The published sources do not state whether the four years run from the date the clerk issues the certificate of appointment or from the oath; the process is fee-then-oath-then-certificate, so the two dates are ordinarily the same day. Georgia publishes no commission number to renew against (FAQ: ‘Georgia does not issue commission numbers’). No separate continuing-education hour requirement is published. Georgia’s only recurring education duty is the pre-renewal training class itself: O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(h)(1) requires the educational training class ‘within 30 days prior to each subsequent renewal appointment’, which functions as renewal education but is never expressed in hours, credits or topic areas. No hour count, credit value, provider-diversity rule or carry-over rule appears in the statute, in GSCCCA’s Notary Public Educational Rules (all three rules read in full), or in the FAQ. Tiers searched on 2026-08-12: HB 1292 signed act text of 45-17-8; the Educational Rules PDF (Version 2024-10-09, effective 1/1/2025); GSCCCA General Notary Information and its FAQ; the Public Education Rules page; the Notary Public Application Form page. The course content itself is behind a login at elearn.gsccca.org and could not be inspected.

Your seal or stamp

A SEAL IS MANDATORY ON EVERY NOTARIAL ACT. GSCCCA: ‘Must a notary use a seal or stamp when notarizing documents? Yes. A complete notarial act requires a notary’s signature and seal and the exact date of notarization’, and, under Seal of Office & Notarial Certificates, ‘All Notarial Acts Must be Accompanied by the Seal’. FORM - EITHER IS ACCEPTABLE: ‘Each notary must provide a seal of office for the authentication of notarial acts… Embossment of notarial certificate by such seal is authorized but not necessary, and the use of a rubber or other type stamp shall be sufficient for imprinting the notary’s seal.’ GSCCCA restates it in the FAQ: ‘Georgia accepts either type of seal and makes no distinction between an embossed seal and a rubber ink stamp as long as the four required elements are present.’ THE FOUR REQUIRED ELEMENTS: (1) ‘The name of the notary as it appears on the commission certificate’; (2) ‘The words Notary Public’; (3) ‘The word Georgia or GA’; (4) ‘The name of the county where the notary was commissioned’. No shape, diameter, ink colour or photographic-reproducibility requirement is published in any tier searched. EXPIRATION DATE IS NOT ONE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS: ‘A document is generally valid if the expiration date is mistakenly left out. The wise notary will always include the expiration date. If no stamp is handy, the expiration date may be handwritten.’ HOW YOU GET ONE: the clerk issues ‘a duplicate original of their Certificate of Appointment for presentment to a supplier of notary seals’, and ’the presentment of such a duplicate to a supplier is necessary to obtain a notary seal’. SIGNING: ‘a notary shall sign the notarial certification in ink exactly as the name appears on the notary commission and shall also record the exact date of the notarial act. However, in connection with attestation of deeds or other instruments pertaining to real property, the date of the notarial act shall not be required.’ NAME CHANGE: a new seal is required before the notary may sign the new name - the notary may begin signing the new name only once the appointing clerk has received written notice, a confirmation (typically an amended certificate of appointment) has come back, ‘and a new seal bearing the new name has been obtained’. LOSS OR THEFT: written notice to the appointing Clerk of Superior Court with a copy to GSCCCA ‘within ten days of the loss or theft’. EXPIRY OR RESIGNATION: ‘The notary shall destroy the official seal in the event of resignation. A notary whose commission expires and who does not apply for renewal shall also destroy the notary seal.’ RENEWAL: an existing seal may be reused ‘if the information on the seal matches exactly the information on the new commission’.

Keeping a journal

Georgia requires a journal for some notarial acts.

NARROW, AND NEW SINCE JANUARY 1, 2025 - THIS IS THE FIELD MOST LIKELY TO BE WRONG ON STALE PAGES. Georgia does not impose a general journal duty; it imposes one only for notarial acts performed at the request of a ‘self-filer’. Statutory text, O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(g) as added by 2024 HB 1292 (Act 529), read in the signed act: ‘(2) A notary public shall maintain a written or electronic journal which shall include an entry for each notarial act performed at the request of a self-filer. Each such entry shall include the name of the self-filer; the self-filer’s address; the self-filer’s telephone number; the date, time, and location of notarization; the type of government issued photo identification document presented by the self-filer, unless the identity of the self-filer was confirmed based on personal knowledge; elements of such identification document, if applicable, including any identifying number; the self-filer’s signature; and the type of document presented for notarization.’ Written OR electronic - the notary chooses. WHO IS A ‘SELF-FILER’: subsection (g)(1) borrows the definition in O.C.G.A. 44-2-2, which defines it as a party to a listed real-estate instrument who is NOT: an insurance agent or agency representative licensed to sell title insurance in Georgia; a Georgia-licensed attorney or their representative; a person licensed under Chapter 40 of Title 43; or an agent of a federally insured bank or credit union or an affiliate. In effect the journal duty attaches to notarizing real-estate documents that an unrepresented party is filing for themselves - the anti-deed-fraud purpose HB 1292 was enacted for. EFFECTIVE DATE: HB 1292 SECTION 3-1(b) - ‘Part I of this Act shall become effective on January 1, 2025’, and the journal amendment sits in Part I. NOT PUBLISHED IN ANY TIER SEARCHED: a retention period, a surrender or deposit rule on resignation/expiry/death, an inspection or public-copy right, or a form/format standard for the journal. Tiers searched on 2026-08-12: the HB 1292 signed act (full text of the amended 45-17-8), GSCCCA’s Georgia Notary Law page (which reproduces the journal paragraph verbatim under ‘Georgia Notaries Public Required To Maintain Journal’), the 24-question FAQ, the application-process page, and the Notary Public Educational Rules. The rest of O.C.G.A. Chapter 45-17 has no free official HTML publisher and could not be read.

Online (remote) notarization

Georgia does not authorize remote online notarization.

GEORGIA HAS NO REMOTE ONLINE NOTARIZATION AS OF 2026-08-12, AND NO ELECTRONIC-NOTARY REGISTRATION EITHER. This is a sourced negative built two ways. FIRST, ABSENCE ACROSS EVERY PUBLISHED TIER: no remote, online, audio-video, communication-technology, electronic-notary, technology-provider or RON registration provision appears in the text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by 2024 HB 1292, nor anywhere in GSCCCA’s notary pages read on 2026-08-12 - the General Notary Information page including its full 24-question FAQ, the Georgia Notary Law page, the Notary Public Application Form page, the Public Education Rules page or the Educational Rules PDF. GSCCCA is the authority that would run such a register (it holds the statewide notary database), and it publishes no RON application, no approved-vendor list and no RON fee. SECOND, THE PENDING BILL CONFIRMS THE GAP: HB 289 of the 2025-2026 session (LC 48 1422, Representatives Gullett of the 19th, Efstration of the 104th, Williamson of the 112th and others) is titled ‘so as to provide for remote online notaries public and remote online notarizations;… to provide for application and appointment as a remote online notary public; to provide requirements for electronic journaling’, and would ADD a new Code Section 45-17-8.5 - a section that would not need adding if RON already existed. Its own effective clause, SECTION 3-1, reads: ‘This Act shall become effective upon its approval by the Governor or upon its becoming law without such approval.’ STATUS CHECK PERFORMED: hb-289 does not appear on the Governor’s published signed-legislation lists for either year - 350 signed items listed for 2025 (including hb-287, hb-288, hb-290 and hb-296) and 351 for 2026, all pages of both lists enumerated on 2026-08-12. CONFIDENCE AND ITS LIMIT: high that RON is unavailable; the bill-status check is an inference from the Governor’s signed-acts lists plus GSCCCA’s silence, because the Georgia General Assembly’s own bill-status pages are an Angular single-page app (a plain fetch of legis.ga.gov returns a 1,492-byte shell) and its status API returned an access denial. TRIPWIRE: if HB 289 or a successor is signed, Georgia flips to authorized-with-registration on the day of the Governor’s signature, GSCCCA becomes the appointing authority for remote online notaries, and an electronic journal becomes mandatory for those acts - re-check the Governor’s signed-legislation list and GSCCCA’s notary pages after each session. RELATED, AND NOT THE SAME THING: Georgia real-estate documents requiring an unofficial witness must today be witnessed by someone ‘physically present with the signer’ - HB 289 would also change that, which is why the two questions travel together.

What you may charge

$2.00 PER NOTARIAL ACT, plus an optional $2.00 certificate charge. GSCCCA, Georgia Notary Law, ‘Fees of Notaries’: ‘A notary may but does not have to charge fees for performing notarial services. A notary shall inform the person requesting any notarial act prior to performing the service if a fee will be charged and the amount permitted by law for each act. The authorized fee is $2.00 for each notarial act. The notary may, upon request of the person asking for notary service, charge an additional $2.00 for providing a certificate from the Clerk of Superior Court of the effectiveness of the notary commission.’ The governing section is O.C.G.A. 45-17-11 (Fees of notaries). Three things follow that are easy to get wrong: charging is optional, not mandatory; the fee must be disclosed BEFORE the act; and the second $2.00 buys a clerk’s certificate of the commission’s effectiveness, not a second notarization. The rate does not vary by act type in the published text. TRAVEL FEE: not addressed - no travel, mileage or convenience-fee rule appears in the tiers searched on 2026-08-12 (GSCCCA Georgia Notary Law page, the 24-question FAQ, the application-process page, the HB 1292 text of 45-17-8, and the Educational Rules). The full text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-11 itself could not be read at an official free source, so this record quotes GSCCCA’s statement of it rather than the code.

Who does NOT need a commission — exemptions

PARTIAL - GEORGIA PUBLISHES LESS HERE THAN MOST STATES, AND THIS FIELD IS DELIBERATELY INCOMPLETE. What IS published: (a) acting without a commission is barred - ‘It is unlawful for any person to hold himself or herself out as a notary or exercise the powers of a notary without an effective notary commission. A notary shall not make claims to have or imply he or she has powers, qualifications, rights or privileges that a notary does not possess by law’ (GSCCCA, Georgia Notary Law); (b) an act Georgia notaries specifically may NOT perform - ‘In Georgia, can a notary public perform marriage ceremonies? No. Georgia has not granted notaries public the authority to perform marriage ceremonies’ (GSCCCA FAQ), so a Georgia notary is not an ex officio marriage officiant the way a notary is in some states; (c) a certified-copy limit that removes work from notaries entirely - a notary may make certified copies only where the document ‘is neither a public record nor a publicly recorded document, certified copies of which are available from an official source other than a notary’; (d) an institutional accommodation rather than an exemption - O.C.G.A. 45-17-12(b), as summarised by GSCCCA, lets a notary who is an employee, officer, director or stockholder of a bank or corporation take acknowledgments and act as official witness for that business, ‘PROVIDED, HOWEVER, THAT THE NOTARY SHALL NOT PERFORM A NOTARIAL ACT WHERE SUCH NOTARY WOULD BE WITNESSING HIS/HER OWN SIGNATURE’; (e) disqualifications, which are the inverse of exemptions - O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(c) disqualifies a notary who is a signer of, or a party to, the document or transaction, and a notary ‘shall not issue attachments or garnishments or approve bonds for issuing same and shall not issue any summons in a dispossessory case’, though ‘A notary may attest affidavits in attachment, garnishment or dispossessory actions.’ WHAT COULD NOT BE SOURCED, WITH TIERS NAMED: no list of ex officio officials who may notarize without a commission (judges, probate judges, clerks of court, or others) appears in any tier searched on 2026-08-12 - the text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292, GSCCCA’s Georgia Notary Law page, its 24-question FAQ, the application-process page, or the Educational Rules. Georgia’s official code has no free public HTML publisher, so the remainder of Chapter 45-17 (including any section conferring ex officio notarial power) could not be read. Nothing in any source read addresses military notarial powers under 10 U.S.C. 1044a, so this record asserts nothing about them. Treat this field as ‘searched and largely unpublished at the accessible tiers’, not as ‘Georgia has no ex officio notaries’.

How to apply

Applications are handled by Clerk of Superior Court of the county of application (appointing and commissioning authority), with the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA), Notary Division, maintaining the state-wide notary record and approving notary education. Start at the official application page .

Verify a license in Georgia

Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA), Notary Index publishes a public license search , searchable by Name (Last, First Middle), County (dropdown of all 159 Georgia counties), City, Postal Code, Appointment Date Range (from/to), Expiration Date Range (from/to) or Email. It covers The statewide notary index GSCCCA has maintained since 1997, when it ‘assumed the role of maintaining the state-wide central database of notaries public from the Georgia Secretary of State’. Free and public; the form’s own instruction is ‘To find a notary, please enter at least one search criteria and click Submit.’ Reached from gsccca.org under Search > Notary Index > Notary Index Search. Note that results cannot be keyed to a commission number, because Georgia issues none.

Records come from Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA), Notary Index’s own system. LicensingAtlas does not hold license records and cannot confirm any individual’s status — the date on this page refers to the requirements described above, not to anyone’s credential.

Frequently asked questions

Who commissions notaries public in Georgia - is it the Secretary of State?

No. Georgia is one of the states where a county officer, not a state agency, issues the commission: ‘In Georgia, notaries public are commissioned for a four-year term by the Clerk of Superior Court in their county of residence.’ The Georgia Secretary of State has no role - the statewide notary database moved away from that office in 1997, when the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) ‘assumed the role of maintaining the state-wide central database of notaries public from the Georgia Secretary of State.’ GSCCCA approves the mandatory education course and runs the public Notary Index, but the appointment, the oath and the fee all happen at the Clerk of Superior Court’s counter. The commission itself is statewide once issued: ‘a notary public can perform notarial acts anywhere within the boundaries of the state.’

Does Georgia require notary training or an exam?

Training yes, an exam no. Since January 1, 2025, O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(h)(1) - added by 2024 HB 1292 (Act 529) - has required that ‘A notary public shall complete an educational training class relating to the duties of notaries public… prior to the initial appointment and within 30 days prior to each subsequent renewal appointment.’ The course must be GSCCCA-approved, and GSCCCA links its own course as the ‘Free Web-Based Notary Training Course’; you print a certificate of completion and hand it in with your application. No notary examination is published in any tier - not in the statute, not in GSCCCA’s three-rule Notary Public Educational Rules, and not in its 24-question FAQ, which answers the training question with the class alone. The Educational Rules do say a certificate issues ‘upon successful completion of the course’, and the course sits behind a login, so whether it ends in a quiz is not publicly visible - but Georgia has no standalone notary licensing exam.

Do Georgia notaries need a surety bond or E&O insurance?

Neither. GSCCCA answers the bond question directly in its FAQ: ‘Are Georgia notaries required to be bonded? No bond is required of Georgia notaries.’ Errors-and-omissions insurance is not required either - no E&O, liability or minimum-coverage provision appears in the text of O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292, in GSCCCA’s Georgia Notary Law page, in the FAQ, in the application-process page or in the Educational Rules. Georgia is a state where notary bonds and E&O policies are sold but not mandated; the only thing you must buy is a seal.

What does it cost to become a Georgia notary, and why is there a range?

GSCCCA publishes the same figure on three separate pages: ‘The fee for a new notary appointment or for reappointment is $40.00 - $55.00. Please check with the county in which you are applying for the exact fee.’ It is a range because the fee is set and collected by each county’s Clerk of Superior Court at the time you take the oath, not by a statewide schedule - which is also why Georgia has no statewide application form printing a fee. The GSCCCA training course is published as free. Your seal is bought privately from ‘an office supply store or from a notary trade association’, at a price the state does not set. There is no remote-online-notary fee, because Georgia has no remote online notarization.

Do Georgia notaries have to keep a journal?

Only for self-filers - and only since January 1, 2025. O.C.G.A. 45-17-8(g)(2), added by HB 1292, requires that ‘A notary public shall maintain a written or electronic journal which shall include an entry for each notarial act performed at the request of a self-filer’, with each entry recording the self-filer’s name, address and telephone number; the date, time and location; the type and identifying number of the government-issued photo ID presented (unless identity was confirmed by personal knowledge); the self-filer’s signature; and the type of document. A ‘self-filer’ is defined by reference to O.C.G.A. 44-2-2 as a party to a listed real-estate instrument who is not a licensed title-insurance agent or representative, not a Georgia-licensed attorney or their representative, not licensed under Chapter 40 of Title 43, and not an agent of a federally insured bank or credit union or affiliate - in short, an unrepresented person filing their own real-estate document. For ordinary notarizations Georgia imposes no journal duty, and no retention period or surrender rule for the self-filer journal is published in any tier searched.

Can a Georgia notary perform a remote online notarization?

No, not as of August 12, 2026. Georgia authorizes no remote online notarization and issues no separate electronic-notary commission: nothing in O.C.G.A. 45-17-8 as re-enacted by HB 1292, nor anywhere on GSCCCA’s notary pages, provides for audio-video notarization, a remote-notary registration, an approved technology provider or a RON fee. The pending HB 289 (2025-2026 session) would change that - it would add a new Code Section 45-17-8.5 and ‘provide for application and appointment as a remote online notary public’ - but by its own SECTION 3-1 it takes effect only ‘upon its approval by the Governor’, and hb-289 does not appear on the Governor’s signed-legislation list for 2025 or for 2026.

What must a Georgia notary seal contain, and can it be a rubber stamp?

A rubber stamp is fine - Georgia treats embosser and stamp as equals: ‘Embossment of notarial certificate by such seal is authorized but not necessary, and the use of a rubber or other type stamp shall be sufficient for imprinting the notary’s seal.’ The seal must show four elements: the notary’s name as it appears on the commission certificate, the words ‘Notary Public’, the word ‘Georgia’ or ‘GA’, and the county of commission. A seal is required on every act - ‘A complete notarial act requires a notary’s signature and seal and the exact date of notarization’ - though the commission expiration date is not one of the four required elements, and a document is ‘generally valid if the expiration date is mistakenly left out’. To buy a seal you present the duplicate original certificate of appointment the clerk gives you; the supplier needs it. If the seal is lost or stolen you must notify the appointing clerk, copy to GSCCCA, within ten days, and on resignation or an un-renewed expiry you must destroy it.

How much can a Georgia notary charge per notarization?

$2.00 per notarial act - ‘The authorized fee is $2.00 for each notarial act’ (O.C.G.A. 45-17-11, as stated by GSCCCA). Charging is optional: ‘A notary may but does not have to charge fees for performing notarial services’, but if a fee will be charged the notary must say so before performing the act. A second $2.00 may be charged only on request, and only for a different thing: ‘providing a certificate from the Clerk of Superior Court of the effectiveness of the notary commission.’ No travel or convenience fee rule appears in any tier searched, so Georgia publishes no authority either permitting or capping one.

If I move to another Georgia county, does my commission move with me?

No. GSCCCA: ‘Your commission continues in the county of appointment until your current term expires. You must notify the appointing clerk within thirty days of the change and provide a copy to the GSCCCA.’ Within 30 days of the term expiring you may then apply fresh to the clerk in your new county of residence. The same 30-day written-notice duty applies to any change of name, address or telephone number. On a name change you must also give the clerk a new signature sample, and you may begin signing the new name only after the clerk has received the notice, sent back a confirmation (typically an amended certificate of appointment), and you have obtained a new seal bearing the new name.

See every license and certification LicensingAtlas covers in Georgia.

Sources & verification

Last verified against these sources: August 12, 2026.

We re-fetch every cited source on a weekly schedule: see what changed at the agencies, or every correction we have ever made.

LicensingAtlas states licensing and certification requirements categorically from official sources. It is a reference, not legal or career advice, and requirements change frequently — confirm details with the issuing board before you act.