Texas Notary Practice Test (SB693) — with an explanation for every question

The complete free guide to the new Texas SB693 notary requirement

Last reviewed · Written by the Toolskia study team · Independent study material — not affiliated with the Texas Secretary of State or any notary education provider.

If you have been a Texas notary for years, or you are applying for the first time, a genuinely new hurdle now stands between you and your commission: a mandatory state education course and a timed knowledge assessment. Texas is the latest state to close a gap that California, New York and several others closed long ago — until now, Texas issued notary commissions with no education requirement and no exam whatsoever. That changed with Senate Bill 693, and this guide walks through exactly what the law requires, in plain English, drawn straight from the amended Texas Government Code. The practice test above lets you drill the underlying law — acknowledgments and jurats, identification, the record book, the seal, fees and the new penalties — until it feels obvious, so that whichever exact questions the state's own assessment happens to ask, you already know the material cold.

What SB693 actually changed, and why every Texas notary should care

Texas lawmakers built SB693 to close a specific fraud gap. Investigators and title-industry witnesses repeatedly flagged untrained, in-person notaries as the weak link in deed and title fraud schemes — a notary who does not fully understand identification rules, the personal-appearance requirement, or when a thumbprint or witness is genuinely needed can be tricked into validating a fraudulent signature on a deed, and once that signature is notarized it looks legitimate to a county clerk, a title company and a court. The bill's answer was to require, for the first time, that the Secretary of State build mandatory education for every notary and confirm understanding with a graded assessment before commissioning or reappointing anyone. The Act took effect the prior September, and its substantive education and exam requirement binds any notary application or renewal submitted from the compliance date onward (see the exact dates in the notice above). Because the requirement is brand new, most notaries — including many who have held a commission for a decade — are encountering it for the very first time at their next renewal.

How the new mandatory course and assessment actually work

The Secretary of State did not outsource this to a private testing vendor the way some states use companies such as Pearson VUE. Instead, the entire course lives on the Secretary of State's own Notary Portal. It consists of four required videos: What is a Notary Public?, How to Perform a Notarization, Types of Notarial Acts, and Notary Compliance. After the videos, an assessment is embedded directly in the portal, carrying a 30-minute time limit. The course costs $20, plus a small Texas.gov payment-processing surcharge that brings the total to roughly $20.71, and the fee is non-refundable once paid. Once you pay, you have 90 days to finish the course and pass the assessment, so it is worth studying beforehand rather than starting the clock unprepared. As of this writing, the Secretary of State has not published the exact number of assessment questions or the passing score — several other sites guess at specific numbers, but we would rather tell you honestly what is confirmed and build deeper original practice than assert a figure we cannot verify against the statute or official guidance.

Who must take it — new applicants, renewals, and the exemption line

The requirement reaches further than a first-time class of applicants. It applies to every new commission application and to every renewal application filed on or after the law's compliance date. Notaries who already held a valid commission before the Act's effective date are not required to retroactively complete the initial-appointment education they missed — but that is not a permanent exemption. The very next time any of those notaries files a renewal application after the compliance date, the continuing-education requirement applies to them just the same. In practical terms, nearly every active Texas notary will meet this course exactly once, at whichever renewal comes next, and every notary appointed from now on meets it immediately.

Becoming or renewing a Texas notary — commission, bond and application

Outside of the new course, the basic shape of a Texas notary commission has not changed. Applicants apply through the Secretary of State, who commissions Texas notaries and administers the application and course process directly through the online Notary Portal — there is no county-clerk filing step the way California requires. A commission runs for four years from its effective date, after which the notary must file a renewal application (now including the SB693 course, if not already completed) to continue. Every notary must obtain and maintain a $10,000 surety bond as part of the application, which — as in every notary-bond state — exists to compensate the public for losses caused by the notary's errors or misconduct, not to protect the notary personally.

Acknowledgments and jurats — Texas notarial acts

Texas notaries most commonly perform two acts, and distinguishing them correctly is central to the exam and to real-world liability. In an acknowledgment, the signer personally appears before the notary and acknowledges that they signed the document — the signature itself may already have been made before that appearance, so an acknowledgment does not require the notary to watch the person actually sign. A jurat is different: the signer must personally appear, must sign the document in the notary's presence, and must take an oath or affirmation swearing that the document's contents are true. The oath is what makes a jurat a jurat; skip it and the act is not a valid jurat no matter how everything else was handled. In both acts, the notary's role is to confirm identity and complete the certificate correctly — never to judge whether the document itself is legally sound or factually true.

Identifying the signer the Texas way

This is one of the clearest differences between Texas and stricter states like California, and it is worth learning precisely because a Texas-specific exam will test the Texas-specific rule. Under Texas Government Code §406.014, a notary may identify a signer in three ways: the notary may rely on personal knowledge of the signer, gained through ordinary personal or business dealings; the signer may present a government-issued identification card or a United States passport; or the signer may be introduced to the notary by another person, in which case the notary records that introducer's name and mailing address in the record book. Texas explicitly allows personal knowledge, unlike California, which bars it outright — so if you learned notary rules from a California source, unlearn that particular rule before you sit the Texas assessment. All three methods are equally valid; none is a fallback of last resort.

The record book — not new, but now kept for ten years

A persistent myth is that Texas has no journal requirement at all, since some states genuinely do not mandate one. That is incorrect: Texas Government Code §406.014 has long required every notary — other than a court clerk notarizing instruments for the court — to keep a record book of official acts. What SB693 changed is not whether you must keep one, but how long you must keep it. The law added a new retention rule requiring notaries to retain their records until the 10th anniversary of the date of the notarization, a substantial extension from prior practice. The bill's own analysis also makes a recordkeeping failure new grounds for the Secretary of State to reject, suspend or revoke a commission, which raises the practical stakes of treating the record book as optional paperwork rather than a core legal duty.

The notary seal — exact legal requirements

Texas Government Code §406.013 spells out the seal in specific detail, and the exam rewards knowing the exact elements rather than a general sense of "official-looking." The seal must clearly show the words "Notary Public, State of Texas" arranged around a five-pointed star, the notary's name exactly as commissioned, the notary's identifying number, and the commission expiration date. The physical seal must be either circular, no more than two inches in diameter, or rectangular, no larger than one inch by two and a half inches, with a serrated or milled-edge border, and it must legibly reproduce under photographic methods — which is why an indelible ink pad is required for stamp impressions. A notary may never let another person use their seal, and it may be affixed only to authenticate an official act, never as decoration or for any other purpose. The seal is mandatory; there is no signature-only alternative in the statute.

What you may charge — the fee schedule

Texas caps notary fees under Government Code §406.024, and every figure is a maximum, not a suggestion. For an acknowledgment or proof of a written instrument, the cap is $10 for the first signature and $1 for each additional signature on the same document. An oath or affirmation administered with a certificate and seal is capped at $10, and a certified copy is capped at $1 per page. Any notarial act not otherwise listed in the statute is capped at $10. A notary who also holds the separate online-notary authorization may add up to $25 more for a remote online notarization, on top of the base statutory fee for the underlying act. A notary is always free to charge less, or nothing, but never more than these caps.

Prohibited acts and the new SB693 penalties

Two provisions carry real criminal weight and both deserve careful attention. First, Government Code §406.0091, added directly by SB693, makes it an offense to notarize a document with knowledge that the signer did not personally appear at the time of the notarization — no more "they'll sign it and bring it back later" shortcuts. The base offense is a Class A misdemeanor, but it escalates to a state jail felony whenever the document involves a transfer of real property or any interest in it, which is precisely the deed-fraud pattern the bill targeted. The statute does provide an affirmative defense for a notary who was genuinely deceived by an apparently valid but fake identification document. Second, Government Code §406.017 makes it an offense for a notary who is not a licensed attorney to represent that they are one, or to solicit or accept compensation for preparing legal documents or representing someone's interests in a judicial or administrative proceeding — a Class A misdemeanor that becomes a felony on a repeat offense. Together these two sections are the sharpest edges of Texas notary law, and both are new or newly strengthened by SB693.

Remote online notarization in Texas

Texas was an early adopter of remote online notarization, authorizing it back in 2018 and becoming one of the first handful of states to allow a notary and a signer to complete a notarization over live audio-video instead of in person. Performing RON in Texas is not automatic just because you hold a regular commission — it requires a separate authorization as an "online notary public," applied for and approved by the Secretary of State in addition to, not instead of, your base commission. There is no separate bond requirement for the online authorization, but the Secretary of State may charge an additional application fee to administer it. Once authorized, an online notary may add up to $25 to the base statutory fee for each remote act, reflecting the extra technology and identity-verification steps a remote session requires.

Common mistakes that cost points

1. Assuming Texas needs an ID card every time. Personal knowledge and witness introduction are both fully valid alternatives. 2. Believing Texas has no record-book law. It does, and always has — SB693 only extended how long you must keep it. 3. Thinking only brand-new applicants face the SB693 course. Renewing notaries meet it too, at their next renewal. 4. Mixing up the bond amount with another state's figure. Texas is $10,000, not California's $15,000. 5. Assuming any absent-signer notarization is "just" a misdemeanor. It becomes a state jail felony when real property is involved. 6. Believing remote online notarization is automatic. It needs its own separate authorization. 7. Miscalculating the acknowledgment fee as a flat $10 regardless of how many signatures are on the page — it is $10 for the first and $1 for each additional signature. 8. Assuming a private testing company administers the assessment. It runs exclusively through the Secretary of State's own Notary Portal.

Pro tips before you start the official course

Lock in the exact numbers first — four-year commission term, $10,000 bond, $20 course fee, 30-minute time limit, 90-day completion window, $10-plus-$1 acknowledgment fee, 10-year record retention — because precise figures are the easiest points to either win or lose. Learn the three identification methods as a set so you never default to "ID card only" out of habit from a stricter state. Separate the two SB693 penalty provisions in your head: §406.0091 is about personal appearance and its felony escalation for real property, §406.017 is about pretending to be a lawyer — they are tested very differently. Do not start the official 30-minute timer cold. Since the state has not published its exact question count or pass mark, use this practice test until every topic below feels automatic, so whatever the real assessment asks, the underlying law is already second nature.

Why this practice test beats hunting for "the real questions"

Because the Secretary of State has not published the assessment's exact format, any site claiming to have "the real 20 questions" is guessing, and a guess you memorize is worse than no guess at all if it happens to be wrong. This tool takes the opposite approach: forty original questions built directly from the current text of Texas Government Code Chapter 406, each with a full explanation of the reasoning, so that no matter what the state's own quiz actually asks, you already understand the underlying rule rather than a memorized answer key. Add the timed mock, the topic analytics and the readiness meter, and you get a genuine study coach rather than a static PDF or a rumor.

Authoritative sources to confirm everything

This guide and tool are for study only, and notary law can change. Always confirm specifics with official sources:

• The Texas Government Code, Chapter 406 (Notary Public), as amended by SB693 — the underlying statute this entire practice test is built from.
• The enrolled text and bill analysis of Senate Bill 693, 89th Texas Legislature — for the exact new provisions and their legislative purpose.
• The Texas Secretary of State, Notary Public program and Notary Portal — for the official course, current fees, application forms and any future updates to the assessment format.

Frequently asked questions

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