Remote Online Notarization in NY (RON), Explained

It’s late, you’ve got a notary forum open in one tab and the DOS site in another, and you’re trying to answer one question before you spend a dime: is “online notary” a separate, easier path, or is it the same New York notary commission with something bolted on top? You’re not the only one lost in it. New Yorkers openly call the process of actually performing e-notarizations “extremely opaque,” and even people who got commissioned just to do a job say they can’t find a straight explanation anywhere.

So here’s the straight version, no bio and no “like and subscribe” first.

The short version: New York doesn’t have a separate “RON license.” Remote online notarization (RON) and in-person electronic notarization both fold into one “electronic notary” registration under Executive Law §135-c. You still become a notary the normal way, and the electronic capability is a $60 registration added on top. Registering doesn’t strip your in-person powers either. It reissues one commission that does both electronic and wet-ink work.

RON vs e-notary vs traditional, sorted out

The words get used interchangeably online, and that’s most of the confusion. Even a former Microsoft employee who once taught this stuff admitted the terminology trips people up, because the same word gets reused in different contexts. Let’s separate them.

Traditional notarization is the wet-ink kind. Paper document, and the signer standing right in front of you while you stamp it.

Electronic notarization (e-notary) is the umbrella New York actually uses. It covers electronic records signed with electronic signatures, whether the signer is sitting next to you or on a screen.

Remote online notarization (RON) is the remote branch of that. The signer isn’t in the room. New York redefined “personal appearance” so that a real-time, two-way audio-video connection, where you and the signer are separated but communicating live by sight and sound, satisfies the appearance requirement. That’s what makes RON legal at all.

Remote ink notarization (RIN) was the COVID-era workaround: a video call, the signer prints and signs paper, then mails it to you. New York retired it. RIN hasn’t been legal here since January 31, 2023. If a study guide or blog still tells you to sign-and-mail, it’s out of date.

One myth to kill while we’re here: people believe RON in New York is only for real-estate or mortgage documents. It isn’t. Remote online notarization is approved for every act a notary can do in person. If you can notarize it at a desk, you can notarize it on video.

What actually changed in 2023

New York’s permanent electronic notarization framework, 19 NYCRR Part 182, took effect January 25, 2023. The state’s electronic-notary registration portal opened a week later, on February 1, 2023. That’s the moment “become an online notary in NY” stopped being a temporary emergency measure. For anyone who wants to become a remote notary in NY, it became a permanent registration.

A second change caught a lot of people off guard, and it applies to every notary, not just the electronic ones. As of January 25, 2023, all New York notaries have to keep a journal of every notarial act and retain it for ten years. You’ll still see blogs claiming a bill exempted paper notarizations from that journal rule. It didn’t. Governor Hochul vetoed that exemption on November 22, 2024, the third year in a row it was vetoed, so the universal journal duty still stands. Several notary blogs reported the exemption as law and were flat wrong on a testable point. Don’t study from those.

The “$60 mistake” myth: you won’t waste a commission

Here’s the fear that stops people from registering: they think e-notary is a separate license they have to buy on top of a traditional one, and that if they pick the wrong one first they’ll waste the fee or lose their in-person powers.

Let’s put it down.

There is one commission. Registering as an electronic notary automatically cancels your existing traditional commission and reissues a single one that covers electronic and remote acts plus traditional wet-ink work. You end up with one license, and you keep the ability to notarize paper in person. You use the new electronic-notary ID number on your acts from then on.

What you can’t do is skip the state entirely. Before you perform any electronic notarial act, you have to register the capability with the Secretary of State. A plain commission by itself does not authorize electronic or remote acts. Only notaries registered as electronic notaries may conduct remote online notarizations.

Now, the order-of-operations question genuinely divides experienced notaries. One camp insists you need a traditional commission first; another insists you can register electronic from a standing start and it simply voids any prior traditional commission. When commissioned notaries argue about it in public, a beginner has no shot at guessing right, so lean on the reliable part: you become a notary by passing New York’s exam and getting commissioned, and the electronic capability is a $60 registration layered on that commission. Either way you end up with one commission that does everything. There’s no wasted $60 in that path.

For the full commissioning path, traditional or electronic, see how to become a notary in New York. And because electronic notarization rules are the kind of current-law detail the exam can test, it’s worth checking where you stand before you pay for anything: the free practice test shows you fast.

What it takes to register and perform RON

The $60 registration and staying inside New York

The electronic-notary registration under Part 182 carries a $60 non-refundable fee, separate from your underlying commission costs. For reference, becoming a New York notary in the first place runs a $60 application fee plus a $15 written exam fee, and the commission itself is a four-year term. New York attorneys and Unified Court System court clerks are exempt from the exam.

The location rule trips people up, so read it twice: you, the notary, must be physically located within New York State at the moment of the act. The signer can be anywhere. There are extra rules if the signer is outside the United States. And you can’t fudge your own location, the regulations require you to work on a network that allows location detection, and you may not disable or disguise it during an electronic act.

The remote ID check that in-person work doesn’t require

When the signer’s across the state instead of across the desk, “I looked at their license” isn’t enough. New York requires the communication technology to let you identify the remotely located individual live, in real time, at the moment of the act, not by recorded video or an email exchange after the fact.

That breaks into three checks a paper notarization never asks for. First, live real-time verification of the signer during the act itself. Second, credential analysis, which confirms the government ID is authentic. Third, identity proofing, which confirms the person on screen is who that ID says they are. New York pins those last two to a standard: the technology has to meet NIST Identity Assurance Level 2.

This is also the wall the DIY crowd hits. The tempting shortcut is “I’ll just record a Zoom call and lock the PDF in Acrobat, why pay a platform?” You’d have a recording and a locked PDF, and you’d still be missing almost everything the state actually requires. New York requires a vendor that performs that credential analysis and identity proofing, and title insurance underwriters only accept platforms they’ve vetted. Zoom plus Acrobat clears none of that.

The 10-year recording and recordkeeping rules

Every remote act has to be captured on audio-video, and you have to retain that recording for at least ten years from the date of the transaction. That’s on top of the ten-year journal every New York notary already keeps. Attorneys have publicly complained that storing a decade of clients’ government-ID videos securely is a heavy burden, and they’re not wrong, it’s a genuine cost of doing this work. The journal and recordkeeping rules are worth reading in full before you register.

What an e-notary commission actually lets you do

The upside is real. That one reissued commission covers both remote electronic acts and ordinary in-person wet-ink notarizations, and RON itself extends to every act you could perform in person. For the full powers an e-notary adds, the booklet spells them out.

Now the honest economics, because the “$25 per act, sign up and watch the money roll in” pitch is a trap. New York caps the electronic notarial act fee at $25, and that cap is statutory and “inclusive of all costs incurred by the notary”. You cannot pass your platform’s subscription fee to the signer, it comes out of your $25. See how the $25 e-notarial act fee fits the state’s other fee limits for context.

The platforms also don’t hand you clients. The best-known on-demand service excludes New York notaries entirely, and on the NY notary forums, commissioned notaries say they know of no decent on-demand platform in the state. For those who do get onto one, the reality is thin volume and glitchy software that turns a fifteen-minute document into an hour. A working person nets maybe three signings a month.

New York makes it harder still by being an outlier on vendor selection. Most RON states have the Secretary of State approve providers. New York puts the burden of vetting the technology on you, the individual notary, and publishes no approved-vendor list at all. Notaries are left to guess which platforms comply, and it’s a source of real anger, not just confusion. The one durable defense is to stop hunting for a name and learn the criteria instead. Ask three plain questions of any platform. Does it run credential analysis and identity proofing at NIST IAL2? Does it keep you on a network that can detect your location? And can it capture and hold the audio-video record for ten years? A platform that clears those is a platform you can defend.

One more snag worth naming, because the official guides skip it: getting your approval letter is not the finish line. The next wall is the exemplar, the sample signed document you submit to the state, and DOS has bounced applicants’ exemplars more than once. The knowable reason is that a standalone Adobe or Acrobat signature isn’t accepted, you need a compliant digital certificate from a provider that meets New York’s requirements. If your exemplar keeps coming back, that’s almost always why.

And if none of this appeals? You’re allowed to walk away from it. Plenty of New York notaries who only wanted to notarize for their employer or coworkers looked at the platform requirement, decided they didn’t want to pay to ID people they already know, and stayed traditional-only. A commission that does in-person work is a complete, legitimate thing on its own. The full cost of the commission is the same whether you register for RON or not.

FAQ

Do I need a traditional commission before I can become an electronic notary? One commission, not two. Registering as an electronic notary reissues a single commission covering both electronic and in-person work, so there’s no “wrong” license to buy first.

Can I do remote notarizations with my regular commission? No. You have to register the electronic capability with the Secretary of State first, and only registered electronic notaries may perform remote acts.

Is remote ink notarization (the video-call-and-mail method) still allowed? No. Remote ink notarization hasn’t been legal in New York since January 31, 2023.

Do I have to be in New York to notarize someone remotely? Yes. You must be physically inside New York State at the moment of the act, though the signer can be located anywhere.

How long do I have to keep the recordings? Ten years for the audio-video recording, and ten years for the journal every New York notary now keeps regardless of whether they work electronically.

Does New York give me a list of approved platforms? No. New York publishes no approved-vendor list, so hold any platform to the criteria yourself: NIST IAL2 identity proofing, location detection, and ten-year audio-video capture.

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Electronic notarization is current New York law, and current law is exactly what the exam tests you on. Before you spend anything on registration or a platform, find out where you actually stand: take the free practice test and see how you’d do. If you’d rather learn the whole thing properly, the course teaches the current e-notary rules, not the pre-2023 ones.

Written by a commissioned New York notary. Educational content about notary law, not legal advice.