5.1 Notary Fees

How Utah Caps Notary Fees

Utah Code Section 46-1-12 ("Fees and notice") fixes the maximum a notary public may charge for each notarial act. The statute protects the public from gouging while letting notaries recover reasonable compensation. Charging more than the statutory ceiling is a violation that can support revocation of a commission and a complaint to the Lieutenant Governor's Office, which administers Utah notaries.

The central rule the exam tests is that fees are assessed per signature or per act, not per document. A ten-page deed signed by one person is one acknowledgment ($10), but a one-page deed signed by three people is three acknowledgments ($30).

Maximum Fee Schedule

The $10 traditional ceiling took effect November 1, 2019 (raised from the old $5 cap by HB 52); memorize this if the exam offers "$5" as a distractor. The higher $25 remote cap reflects the platform, identity-proofing, and recording costs of Remote Online Notarization.

Worked Fee Examples

Work these the way the exam frames them — count signatures and acts, then multiply.

Trap: when one document needs two different acts (e.g., an acknowledgment of the signature plus a jurat on an attached sworn statement), each act is charged separately. The two acts are not bundled into a single $10 charge.

Charging Less, or Nothing

Because the statute sets ceilings, a notary may always charge less or waive the fee entirely. This is routine for notaries employed by banks, title companies, credit unions, and law offices, who notarize as a job duty at no charge to customers. There is no Utah requirement that a notary charge anyone; a free notarization is fully valid.

Travel Fees — the Three Conditions

A notary may add a separate travel fee for going to the signer, but only if all three statutory conditions are met:

1. The notary explains the travel fee is separate from, and additional to, the notarial fee.
2. The notary tells the signer the travel fee is not specified or mandated by law.
3. The notary and signer agree on the amount in advance.

The travel fee may not exceed the approved federal (IRS) mileage rate. For 2025 the IRS standard business mileage rate is $0.70 per mile; always quote the current-year rate. A travel fee charged without advance disclosure and agreement is improper, even if the mileage math is correct.

Exam Hot Spots

• Traditional cap: $10 per signature/page/person; remote cap: $25 per act.
• Per signature/act, never per document — multiply by signers and pages.
• Travel fee requires advance disclosure + agreement and may not exceed the federal mileage rate.
• Maximums are ceilings: charging less or free is always permitted.

Fee Disclosure and Compliance

Utah Code 46-1-12 is titled "Fees and notice" because disclosure is part of the duty, not an afterthought. Before performing an act, a prudent notary states the fee for each act, confirms whether any travel fee applies, and gives the signer a clear total so there are no surprises. When fees are charged, the amount is also recorded as an entry in the journal (see Section 5.2), including a "$0" or "no charge" notation when the act is free.

What counts as one "act"

The per-signature rule turns on how many separate notarial certificates are completed, not how the paperwork is stapled together:

• One signer, one acknowledgment certificate = one $10 act, regardless of page count.
• Two signers on the same deed each needing acknowledgment = two acts ($20), because each signature is separately acknowledged.
• A jurat for the affiant plus an acknowledgment for a separate party on the same packet = two acts, even though it is "one document."

Prohibited and risky charges

Employer and mobile-notary contexts

Many Utah notaries are employer-sponsored (bank tellers, escrow officers, HR staff). When the employer pays the notary's commission costs, the employer commonly directs that customer notarizations be free, and any statutory fee actually collected may belong to the employer. Mobile notaries and loan-signing agents, by contrast, rely on the travel fee to make house calls worthwhile — which is exactly why the advance-disclosure-and-agreement rule exists, so signers are never ambushed by an unexpected charge.

On the exam, separate the notarial fee (capped, per act) from the travel fee (negotiated, capped only by the federal mileage rate); they are two different line items with two different rule sets.