Sponsors (9)
Official title: To authorize notaries public to perform, and to establish minimum standards for, electronic notarizations and remote notarizations that occur in or affect interstate commerce, to require any Federal court to recognize notarizations performed by a notarial officer of any State, to require any State to recognize notarizations performed by a notarial officer of any other State when the notarization was performed under or relates to a public Act, record, or judicial proceeding of the notarial officer's State or when the notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 3, 2025 by Cliff Bentz · Last progress March 3, 2025
The bill makes electronic and remote notarizations widely usable and legally effective across jurisdictions—greatly expanding access and commercial certainty—while concentrating new privacy, fraud, compliance, and interstate‑complexity risks that could raise costs and make some fraudulent or improper notarizations harder to challenge.
Most people and businesses engaging in interstate or multi‑jurisdiction transactions will have electronic and remote notarizations recognized across States and in federal courts, reducing delays and uncertainty for documents used nationally.
People who cannot easily reach an in‑person notary — including rural residents, people with disabilities, and U.S. parties dealing with signers abroad — can complete notarizations remotely using audio‑visual and defined communications technology, saving travel time and enabling remote commerce.
Requiring electronic signatures/metadata to be bound to electronic records and keeping audio‑visual recordings creates an auditable trail that preserves evidentiary value and helps detect tampering or fraud in remote notarizations.
Treating out‑of‑state electronic/remote notarizations as prima facie or conclusive evidence and broadly recognizing interstate notarizations increases the risk that fraudulent or improper notarizations will be harder to challenge, exposing individuals and institutions to wrongful transactions.
Mandatory audio‑visual recordings, metadata binding, and long retention periods increase privacy and data‑security risks if recordings or associated data are mishandled or breached.
Notaries, small businesses, and state/local governments face meaningful compliance costs (identity services, secure signature/record‑binding tech, storage and retention systems, training, and IT oversight), which may raise fees or reduce availability of services.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal baseline allowing interstate electronic and remote notarizations with ID-verification, audio-visual recording, retention, and cross-State recognition while preserving State regulatory authority.
Creates a federal baseline to allow and recognize electronic and remote notarizations that occur in or affect interstate commerce while preserving State control over notaries. It sets minimum identity-verification, audio-video-recording, record-retention, and authentication requirements for electronic and remote notarizations, requires courts and States to accept valid out-of-State notarizations, and preserves State authority to require additional qualifications, discipline notaries, and decline to perform certain notarizations.