How we build the notary directory
Every listing on this site is a row from a state's own notary roster. We do not collect notary details, buy them, or accept submissions into the directory. If a commission is listed here, a state published it.
Where the data comes from
Each state's notary regulator publishes the commissions it has issued. We ingest six of them, unchanged.
- CaliforniaSecretary of State — notary public listing
- TexasSecretary of State
- New YorkDepartment of State
- ColoradoDepartment of State
- OregonSecretary of State
- DelawareDepartment of State
California's is worth describing, because it is the one most people assume works differently: the state does not offer a public search for an individual notary. It publishes the whole active list as a single compressed file, refreshed daily, and anyone can download it. Checking one commission means downloading that file and searching it yourself.
That is most of the reason this directory exists. We take the file the state publishes and make one commission findable at one address.
How often it updates
The California roster is re-read every weekday morning, shortly after 6am Pacific, because the state regenerates its file every business day. The other five states are read on their own schedules. Each listing shows the date its record was last confirmed against the source.
When a commission stops appearing in a state's file, we mark it inactive rather than deleting the page — a lapsed commission is a fact about a record, and a page that quietly vanishes answers nothing for someone holding a document that was notarised last year.
What we publish, and what we do not
We publish the fields a state publishes about a commission: the name on it, the commission number, the expiry date, the status, the city and county on file, and the business name where the roster carries one.
We never publish a street address, and never an email. California's roster carries a mailing address for most commissions, and for a great many notaries that address is their home. It is ingested because the state's file contains it and dropped at the server boundary — no public page, API response or export has ever included it.
We also do not publish reviews, ratings, photographs or any description of a notary's services unless that notary has claimed their own page and written it. Nothing on an unclaimed page is authored by us or by anyone else. There is nothing to be flattered by and nothing to dispute.
Claimed and unclaimed pages
A page is unclaimed until the notary it names proves the commission is theirs. Until then it shows the state's record and nothing more. Once claimed, everything added — services, availability, languages, a photo — is written by that notary, and the state's record continues to sit beside it unchanged.
Checking a listing, or asking us to remove one
Every commission record on this site can be checked against its state's published file, and we link to that file above. If a listing is wrong, the state's record is what needs correcting first — we republish what the state publishes, so a correction there reaches us on the next sync.
If you are the notary and you would rather not be listed at all, you can ask us to remove your listing. We do not require a reason.