5.1 Notary Fees

New Jersey adopted the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (RULONA), N.J.S.A. 52:7-10 et seq., which governs the maximum fees a notary public may collect. The single most common exam trap is believing every act is capped at $2.50. It is not. New Jersey publishes a three-tier fee schedule in Chapter 11 of the official Notary Public Manual, and the higher tiers behave very differently from the ordinary cap.

The Three Statutory Fee Tiers

Memorize the exact statutory language for Tiers 2 and 3: the fee applies "regardless of the number of such services performed in a single transaction." That phrase is what makes them flat caps.

Per Act vs. Per Transaction

The Tier 1 ordinary fee is per notarial act, not per signature and not per visit. The Tier 2 and Tier 3 fees are per transaction, no matter how many signatures or acts the closing requires.

Trap: an older study aid might say three real estate acknowledgments equal $7.50. That is wrong. A real estate grantor transaction is a flat $15.00 even if you notarize ten signatures inside it.

Charging Is Optional

No New Jersey statute requires a notary to charge anything. The figures above are ceilings, and $0 is always permissible.

• A notary may waive the fee for any signer.
• An employer may prohibit charging customers, or set an internal fee below the statutory cap. Banks, credit unions, and law firms frequently bar charging walk-in customers.
• A notary employed by the public (e.g., a county clerk's office) may be barred from collecting personal fees entirely.

Travel and Ancillary Charges

The statutory cap covers the notarial act only. Because travel is not itself a notarial act, New Jersey permits a notary to negotiate a separate travel fee (mileage, time, after-hours premium). Best practice is to disclose and agree on any travel fee before leaving, separately from the act fee.

Worked example: A signing agent drives 30 minutes to a client's home to acknowledge the grantor's signatures on a residential deed transfer. She may charge a $15.00 transaction fee for the real estate acknowledgments plus a separately disclosed $40 travel fee. She may not add a charge for explaining what the deed means.

Consequences of Overcharging

Collecting more than the statutory maximum is a violation that the State Treasurer (Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services) can act on:

• Suspension or revocation of the commission.
• Civil liability to the overcharged party.
• Reputational and employment consequences.

Because every fee must be recorded in the journal (see 5.2), an itemized over-charge is documentary evidence against the notary, so accuracy protects you.

Special Fee Situations

A few recurring fact patterns confuse candidates:

• Remote online notarization (RON). The act fee is still bounded by the same statutory tiers. The RON technology platform may add its own technology or convenience charge, but that platform charge is a service fee, not a statutory notarial fee, and it is the vendor's, not a personal notary fee above the cap.
• Refusal to pay. A notary who has performed the act may collect the lawful fee, but cannot withhold a properly executed certificate as leverage in a way that harms the signer; the cleaner practice is to disclose and collect before completing.
• Free public officials. A notary commissioned and acting in a salaried public role may be barred from pocketing fees; the fee then belongs to the public body or is simply not charged.
• No 'rounding up.' $2.50 means $2.50. A notary cannot round an ordinary acknowledgment to $5 or add a $1 'handling' surcharge to the act itself; surcharges must attach to a genuinely separate non-notarial service.

Disclosing the Fee

New Jersey does not mandate a posted fee schedule for every notary, but transparency is the standard of care:

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