Current as of 2026-07-01
The short answer
Yes. California requires every commissioned notary to keep one active sequential journal of all official acts. The rule lives in Government Code section 8206.
You keep one journal at a time. You store it in a locked and secured area under your own direct and exclusive control, and you record an entry for every act you perform, including the ones where you charge no fee. The journal is your property, and you can never hand it to an employer.
What every entry must contain
Section 8206 spells out what each entry has to capture:
- The date, time, and type of each official act.
- The character of the document, meaning what it is, such as a grant deed or a power of attorney.
- The signature of each person whose signature you notarize.
- How you identified the signer. If you relied on satisfactory evidence, record either the signature of the credible witness, or the type of ID, the agency that issued it, its serial or identifying number, and its issue or expiration date.
- If you used two credible witnesses, the type of document that identified each witness, its identifying number, and its issue or expiration date.
- The fee you charged for the notarial act. If you waived it, write "no fee" or "0," and list any travel fee separately.
- The signer's thumbprint when the document calls for one (see below).
When a thumbprint is required
California asks for a thumbprint in the journal when the notarized document is a deed, quitclaim deed, deed of trust, or any other document that affects real property, and for a power of attorney. The signer gives a right thumbprint. If the right thumb is not available, use the left, or any other finger, and note which one you took.
Two documents are carved out. You do not need a thumbprint for a trustee's deed that results from a foreclosure, whether by court decree or a nonjudicial sale under Civil Code section 2924, or for a deed of reconveyance. Skipping a thumbprint the law requires carries a civil penalty of up to $2,500 under Government Code section 8214.23, so this is one to get right.
How long you keep it
California does not put a year count on your active paper journal. Section 8209 sets what happens when your commission ends instead. Within 30 days of resigning, being removed, or letting the commission expire without reappointment, you deliver all of your notarial journals, records, and papers to the clerk of the county where your oath of office is on file.
That is the county clerk, not the Secretary of State. Journals mailed to the Secretary of State get returned. If a notary dies, the personal representative makes the same delivery to the county clerk. For remote online notarization, the electronic journal is kept for 10 years after the last act under Government Code section 8231.5.
If your journal is lost or stolen
If your journal is lost, stolen, misplaced, destroyed, or damaged so you cannot use it, tell the Secretary of State right away. Send the notice by certified or registered mail, or another method that gives you a receipt. Include the dates the missing entries cover, your commission number, your commission expiration date, and a copy of any police report you filed.
Watch the split here: a lost journal gets reported to the Secretary of State, while an ended commission sends the journal to the county clerk. Two different offices, two different triggers.
How Notary Journal handles all of this
Notary Journal builds each California entry to these rules. The form shows the fields section 8206 asks for and hides the ones your state forbids. It prompts for the right thumbprint on real property and power-of-attorney documents, records a "no fee" entry when you waive the fee, and keeps every entry numbered and append-only so the sequence holds up under review.
When you need a copy for the county clerk or an auditor, it exports a PDF or CSV. The whole thing runs on your device, offline, with no account and no server. Your record stays yours.
A note on what this is
This page is a general reference, not legal advice. California notary law can change, and the rules differ for in-person and remote acts. Confirm the current requirements in the California Secretary of State Notary Public Handbook before you rely on anything here.