New York Notary Bond: Not Required — Pass the Exam Instead

No. The exam is walk-in only — the Department of State publishes a schedule of dates and test-center locations twice a year (roughly January–June and July–December), and you simply show up. Seats are assigned first-come, first-served, so arriving right at the posted start time is a real risk: test centers recommend arriving at least 15 minutes early, and late arrivals are turned away with no makeup slot that day. You'll need a valid photo ID to check in, and centers thumbprint every applicant before testing begins.

70% or higher on a 40-question, multiple-choice, machine-scored exam covering the Notary Public License Law. You mark answers by filling in circles on a scan sheet, and you have up to one hour to finish. The Department of State does not mail you a numeric score — you receive a pass/fail notice by mail, typically within a few weeks. If you fail, you can retake the exam at the next scheduled sitting for another $15; there's no cap on retakes.

Two years. Once your pass notice arrives, you have up to two years to submit it — along with your notarized application, your signed oath of office card, and the $60 application fee — to the Department of State. Let that window close and the pass notice expires; you'd have to sit for the exam again. Most applicants file within a few weeks of passing rather than sitting on it, since nothing about the process gets easier by waiting.

Yes. Under N.Y. Executive Law §130, an individual currently admitted to practice law in New York State may be appointed (or reappointed) a notary public without taking the written exam — and can keep the commission even if they later live in or move to a state adjoining New York, an accommodation no other applicant category gets. Certain Unified Court System clerks who reached their title through a civil-service promotional exam in the court-clerk series also skip the notary exam. Neither exemption waives the $60 application fee under §131 — it only removes the testing requirement.

The county clerk doesn't decide anything — the Department of State does that — but the clerk's office is where your commission legally lands. Per N.Y. Executive Law §131, once the Secretary of State approves your application, the office transmits your dated commission, a certified copy of your oath of office, and $20 (apportioned out of your $60 application fee) to the county clerk of the county where you reside, by the 10th day of the following month. That filing is what makes your commission a matter of public record other parties (banks, courts, title companies) can verify.

Deal size. A downstate loan-signing assignment — a Manhattan co-op refinance, a Brooklyn multi-family closing, a Westchester jumbo mortgage — routinely involves loan documents in the high six or seven figures, so the title companies and signing services that assign that work set their own E&O floor well above what a small-town closing would ever require. $25,000 in E&O satisfies most rural and upstate assignments; NYC-metro signing services commonly ask for $50,000, and $100,000 is not unusual for investor-property or commercial closings. None of this is state-mandated — New York asks notaries for neither a bond nor E&O — but the private market downstate effectively sets its own floor.