North Carolina Notary Exam Prep 2026: Free Practice Questions by Topic

Why study by topic, not by guessing

The North Carolina notary exam is not a memory test of trivia. Every scored item maps to a defined area of the Notary Public Act, and the exam by statute (N.C.G.S. § 10B-8) covers notarial laws, procedures and ethics drawn from Chapter 10B. Because North Carolina does not publish a single statewide question count, you cannot game the exam by counting items: the only fixed target is the 80 percent pass standard. The smarter move is to study the law in the proportions the exam tests it, working one topic at a time until each area feels solid instead of trying to cram the whole statute at once. The five guides below mirror the law's five working areas exactly.

The five topics the exam covers

Each guide answers the real questions North Carolina candidates ask, explains the governing statute, gives you a comparison table for the points people confuse, and lets you try free practice questions drawn from a 435-question bank cited to Chapter 10B. Together they walk the whole syllabus:

• Getting your commission: who can apply, the $50 fee, the six-hour course, the exam, the oath at the register of deeds and the five-year term under N.C.G.S. §§ 10B-5 to 10B-13.
• Notarial acts: the powers and limitations of a notary, identifying signers, acknowledgments versus oaths, and the fee caps under N.C.G.S. §§ 10B-20 to 10B-32.
• Certificates, signature and seal: the certificate every act needs, the by-hand-in-ink signature rule and the official seal under N.C.G.S. §§ 10B-35 to 10B-43.
• Electronic and remote notarization: registering with the Secretary, the four-hour course, where the notary must sit and the 10-year journal backup under N.C.G.S. §§ 10B-106 to 10B-134.17.
• Ethics and penalties: the Secretary's discipline powers and the misdemeanor and felony offences under N.C.G.S. § 10B-60.

Exam-day logistics in North Carolina

North Carolina runs its notary exam differently from most states. There is no single statewide Pearson VUE sitting: instead, under N.C.G.S. § 10B-8, you take a course of classroom instruction of not less than six hours approved by the Secretary, then pass a Secretary-approved written examination by answering at least 80 percent of the questions correctly. The course and exam are delivered by community colleges and other approved providers, so the exact number of questions and any time limit are set by your provider rather than by a single statewide rule. One approved provider, Guilford Technical Community College, gives its online exam closed-book and proctored with a 30-minute limit, which is why this app's practice mock uses 30 questions held to the same 80 percent bar. Licensed members of the North Carolina State Bar are exempt from the course requirement. The application fee to the Secretary of State is $50 and is nonrefundable under N.C.G.S. § 10B-13.

Check your readiness, then go deeper

Not sure where to start? Work the free practice questions on each topic page to find your weak areas, then drill them. Each topic page exposes a slice of the same question bank that powers our offline app, so you can sample the real difficulty for free before you decide to unlock all 435 questions and 612 flashcards. The facts here are taken from the public text of the North Carolina Notary Public Act and the Electronic Notary Act (N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 10B) and were last reviewed on 2026-06-23, so treat this hub as your citable starting point and verify any deadline against the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State before you act on it.