Notary Journal & Fee Guide
The journal entry every notarial act needs, kept on your phone: signer, ID, act, fee and signature, with the fields your state prohibits suppressed automatically. Encrypted on your device, no account, no cloud.
Do notaries have to keep a journal?
Around 22 U.S. states require notaries to keep a journal of their notarial acts, as of July 2026. The rest either recommend one or leave it to the notary, and the exact requirements, what to record and how long to keep it, are set by each state’s notary statutes and administrative rules. Even where a journal is optional, it is widely recommended as your best evidence if a notarization is ever challenged. Always verify the current rules with your commissioning authority.
Can I keep my notary journal on my phone?
In many states, yes. The table below lists the states this app carries a researched profile for, each one read against the statute cited beside it. Several states accept an electronic journal for traditional notarizations; Arizona, Missouri and Washington require a paper journal, so an app can only be a supplementary record there, and California is unclear for traditional notarizations. Verify with your commissioning authority before relying on an electronic journal.
What does the app cost?
The download is free and includes your state’s maximum-fee guide, your state’s journal and RON rules, and your first 20 journal entries. A single one-time purchase of US$19.99 unlocks unlimited entries, and there is no subscription. Viewing your records, search, PDF/CSV export and encrypted backup are always free and never paywalled.
How does the app protect signer privacy?
Records are stored only on your device, encrypted with SQLCipher; there is no account and no cloud, so signer data never leaves your phone. Entries are hash-chained so tampering is evident. The app applies per-state field rules: some states prohibit recording ID numbers, and the app suppresses those fields in those states. The optional licence-barcode scan fills in signer details on-device, and the image is never stored.
Who this app is for, and who it is not for
It is for a commissioned notary who keeps their own journal: mobile notaries, signing agents, and anyone notarising as part of another job who wants the record on their own phone rather than in a shared system.
It is not a signing-service platform. There is no order management, no client billing, no scheduling and no marketing. It also does not perform remote online notarization: RON needs an approved platform in the states that allow it, and this app records what you did rather than hosting the session. If you need a RON platform or an order pipeline, a different product will serve you better.
Built for one job: your notarial record
The entry a notarial act needs
Signer, identification, the act performed, the fee charged and the signature, captured at the desk. The fields your state prohibits are suppressed automatically rather than left for you to remember.
Your state’s maximum fee guide
What you may lawfully charge per act in your state, free, alongside the journal and remote-notarization rules the same statutes set.
Hash-chained entries
Entries are chained so later tampering with the stored history is evident, which is the property that makes a journal worth having if a notarization is ever questioned.
On your device, encrypted
No account, no cloud, SQLCipher encryption. Signer data never reaches our servers. The optional licence-barcode scan runs on-device and never stores the image.
Where the state rules come from
This app is a recordkeeping tool, not a question bank, so there is no exam syllabus behind it. What it carries instead is a per-state profile of journal, fee and remote-notarization rules, and those are only as good as their sources.
Each state profile in the table above is written from that state’s own notary statute or administrative rule, with the citation stored alongside the rule in the app and printed beside the state. States the app has not researched fall back to a conservative generic profile in the app and are deliberately left out of the table rather than guessed at.
Journal, fee and RON rules change, and none of this is legal advice. Verify the current requirements with your commissioning authority before you rely on them.
State profiles carried in the shipped app as of 28 August 2026: 17 researched states plus a generic fallback.
Common questions
Do notaries have to keep a journal?
Around 22 U.S. states require notaries to keep a journal of their notarial acts, as of July 2026. The rest either recommend one or leave it to the notary, and the exact requirements are set by each state’s notary statutes and administrative rules. Even where a journal is optional, it is widely recommended as your best evidence if a notarization is ever challenged. Always verify the current rules with your commissioning authority.
Can I keep my notary journal on my phone?
In many states, yes: state law or administrative rules explicitly accept an electronic journal for traditional notarizations. Arizona, Missouri and Washington require a paper journal, so an app can only be a supplementary record there, and California is unclear for traditional notarizations. The table on this page lists what the app carries a researched profile for, each with its citation. Verify with your commissioning authority before relying on an electronic journal.
What does the app cost?
The download is free and includes your state’s maximum-fee guide, your state’s journal and RON rules, and your first 20 journal entries. A single one-time purchase of US$19.99 unlocks unlimited entries, and there is no subscription. Viewing your records, search, PDF/CSV export and encrypted backup are always free and never paywalled.
How does the app protect signer privacy?
Records are stored only on your device, encrypted with SQLCipher; there is no account and no cloud, so signer data never leaves your phone. Entries are hash-chained so tampering is evident. The app applies per-state field rules: some states prohibit recording ID numbers, and the app suppresses those fields in those states. The optional licence-barcode scan fills in signer details on-device, and the image is never stored.
Is this an official government app?
No. Notary Journal & Fee Guide is an independent recordkeeping tool from RiverMap Learning. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any Secretary of State, commissioning authority or other government agency, and it is not legal advice. Always verify journal and fee rules with your commissioning authority.
What happens to my records if I stop paying?
Nothing. There is nothing to stop paying. The unlock is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and reading, searching and exporting your records are free forever. Your records live on your device, not on our servers, so they can never be held behind a lapsed payment.
Can I get my journal out of the app?
Yes, and without paying. Export to PDF or CSV is free and never sits behind the unlock, as is encrypted backup. A journal you cannot produce on request is not doing its job, so getting your records out is deliberately not a paid feature.
Does the app do remote online notarization?
No. RON requires an approved platform in the states that permit it, and this app is not one. What it does is record the acts you perform, including RON acts done elsewhere, and show you what your state’s rules say. Check your state’s RON requirements before performing one.
Your journal, on your phone, yours forever.
Free download with 20 entries and your state’s fee guide. One purchase for unlimited. No subscription.