PA's March 28, 2026 RULONA Final Rule: What Actually Changed

Pennsylvania’s first comprehensive overhaul of its notary regulations in nearly a decade took effect on March 28, 2026, the day the Pennsylvania Bulletin published the final rule at 56 Pa.B. 1672 (Doc. No. 26-438). The Department of State added a brand-new Chapter 167 to Title 4 of the Pennsylvania Code, modified §§ 161.1 and 163.1, and deleted the old Chapter 165. Every commissioned PA notary — and every applicant in the pipeline — is now working under a different rulebook than they were a month ago.

This is a working guide to what changed, what it costs, and what to do this week. All regulatory citations link to primary sources.

TL;DR — the 2026 headline changes

Bond increased from $10,000 to $25,000. New and reappointed notaries must post the higher amount; existing commissions may retain the $10,000 bond until expiration. 56 Pa.B. 1672
New $5 maximum fee for witnessing or attesting a signature as a standalone notarial act. Four years of ambiguity around this act are gone. 4 Pa. Code § 167.3
Seven-digit commission identification number is now mandatory on the notary stamp. PA DOS — Notary Public Equipment
No part of a Social Security number may be recorded in a journal — the long-standing “last four is fine” practice is dead. Full driver’s license and full government ID numbers are also out; last four digits of non-SSN credentials are acceptable. PA DOS — Notary Regulations Changes
New § 167.88 requires RON technology providers to give notice when they cease operations and to provide an opportunity for notaries to export their journals and audio-visual recordings. 56 Pa.B. 1672
Electronic and remote notarization fees are capped at $20 per notarial act, charged in addition to the base statutory fee, with itemized receipts required. 4 Pa. Code § 167.3

What actually changed

The bond: $10,000 → $25,000

The most visible change is the surety bond. Under 57 Pa.C.S. § 324 and the newly codified Chapter 167, every notary appointed or reappointed on or after March 28, 2026 must execute a $25,000 bond within 45 days of appointment and record it with the county Recorder of Deeds. Notaries “holding commissions on March 28, 2026 may retain existing bonds until expiration,” per the Department of State’s summary of the rule. PA DOS — Notary Regulations Changes

The Department’s own fiscal impact statement in the rulemaking preamble estimates the bond delta at approximately $5 per year for the average notary — a function of how surety pricing scales, not a new flat fee. 56 Pa.B. 1672

The $5 witness-signature fee

Pennsylvania’s RULONA has always authorized six notarial acts (57 Pa.C.S. § 304), but the fee schedule under the old regulations did not cleanly price “witnessing or attesting a signature” as a standalone act. The new fee table at 4 Pa. Code § 167.3 closes that gap. The Department’s updated Notary Public Fees page (last updated April 6, 2026) now lists a clean $5 maximum. PA DOS — Notary Public Fees

Maximum fees under the new schedule:

Notarial Act	Maximum Fee
Taking acknowledgement (first individual)	$5
Taking acknowledgement (each additional name)	$2
Administering oath or affirmation	$5
Taking verification on oath or affirmation	$5
Witnessing or attesting signature	$5 (new)
Certifying or attesting copy/deposition	$5
Noting protest of negotiable instrument (per page)	$3
Electronic/remote notarization (add-on)	up to $20 per act

Clerical or administrative fees (copying, postage, travel) are not capped by the regulation, but must be “disclosed to customers prior to notarization,” and every fee must appear on an itemized receipt under 4 Pa. Code § 167.3(c). PA DOS — Notary Public Fees

Seven-digit commission IDs on every stamp

The Department’s equipment guidance now requires the commission identification number on every stamp impression to be the full seven-digit ID. The required elements remain, in order: “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”; “Notary Seal”; the notary’s commissioned name and the words “Notary Public”; the county where the notary maintains an office; the commission expiration date; and the seven-digit commission number. Abbreviations are still not permitted except for suffixes in the commissioned name. PA DOS — Notary Public Equipment

A notary whose current stamp already shows a seven-digit number is fine. A notary whose stamp uses fewer digits, or lists the number in an abbreviated form, must reorder before the next reappointment. The Department’s transition language says “current notaries may continue using existing seals until commission expiration; new or reappointed notaries must comply immediately.” PA DOS — Notary Regulations Changes

Journals: no SSN digits, ever

This is the change most likely to produce quiet compliance failures. Under the prior regulatory text and several still-online DOS guidance pages, recording the last four digits of a Social Security number had been common practice. The final rule goes the other way:

No part of a Social Security number may appear in a journal entry.
Full driver’s license numbers and full government ID numbers are also prohibited.
Last four digits of non-SSN credentials (driver’s license, passport, state ID) are acceptable.
Journal entries must be “consecutively numbered,” and electronic journals must meet the enhanced security standards set out in 4 Pa. Code § 167.34.

The DOS preamble summary explains the rationale: the Department wanted to keep the inspection right broad while narrowing the personally identifiable information available to anyone who inspects a journal under 57 Pa.C.S. § 319. 56 Pa.B. 1672 PA DOS — Notary Regulations Changes

Two supporting procedural changes accompany the PII restriction:

A notary must permit inspection (in the notary’s presence) on oral or written request.
A certified copy of a journal entry must be provided within 15 days of a proper request.

Important caveat: at least one official DOS page — the Notary Public Equipment page — still contains older text reflecting the pre-2026 “last four SSN digits” practice. That page has not yet been rewritten to match the final rule. Follow the Notary Regulations Changes page and 56 Pa.B. 1672 until the equipment page catches up.

§ 167.88 — what happens when a RON platform shuts down

Section 167.88 is new and sits in a structural slot that had no prior analogue. It requires every approved electronic and remote-notarization technology provider to notify the Department of State when it ceases operations, and to provide notaries with “the opportunity to export both journals and audio-visual recordings.” 56 Pa.B. 1672

The rule is not theoretical. Pavaso, which appears on the Department’s July 30, 2025 approved-vendor PDF, ceased operations on January 1, 2026 — just 87 days before § 167.88 took effect. PA notaries who used Pavaso as their primary RON platform learned in real time why an orderly-wind-down rule exists. The DOS approved-vendor list has not yet been refreshed to remove Pavaso, so notaries should treat the PDF as a starting point, not a live compliance tool. PA DOS — Electronic or Remote Notarization

The Department also declined, in the final-rule comment responses, to mandate specific credential-analysis methods. The rule is explicitly “technology agnostic.” A RON notary’s compliance obligation remains to (a) use a platform on the DOS-approved list at the moment of the act, (b) maintain an audio-visual recording of the session under 57 Pa.C.S. § 306.1, and (c) record each remote act in the journal. The final rule does not set a specific KBA question count, specific time limits, or specific credential-analysis mechanics — those were proposed during the rulemaking but left out of the final text. 56 Pa.B. 1672

Expanded acceptable identification credentials

The final rule expands the list of identification credentials a notary may rely on when the signer is not personally known. Credentials now explicitly listed as acceptable include military IDs, Department of Corrections inmate cards, Department of Homeland Security identification, Social Security cards (as identity proof only — no part of the number is recorded in the journal), Pennsylvania university IDs, medical marijuana identification cards, and consular documents. Consular documents must use “letters, characters and a language that are read, written and understood by the notary public.” PA DOS — Notary Regulations Changes

30-day notification duties

The rule consolidates a notary’s duty to notify the Department within 30 days of changes to: name, address, phone, email; technology providers; resignation; criminal convictions involving fraud, dishonesty, or deceit; disciplinary actions from other jurisdictions; court findings regarding fraud or unauthorized practice of law; and bond-claim payments.

Explicit disciplinary grounds

The new Chapter 167 writes out conduct that has long been understood as improper but was not always enumerated in regulation: notarizing one’s own signature; notarizing a spouse’s signature when the spouse has a direct or pecuniary interest; affixing the stamp before performance of the act; post-dating or pre-dating acts; altering records after notarization; and retaining customer documents.

When it takes effect — and the transition

The rule was effective on publication, March 28, 2026. The Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) approved the final form on November 20, 2025, and both legislative committees deemed it approved on November 19, 2025. 56 Pa.B. 1672

Transition rules for existing commissions:

Obligation	Existing Commission (before 3/28/2026)	New or Reappointed on/after 3/28/2026
Bond amount	$10,000 until expiration	$25,000 immediately
Seven-digit commission ID on stamp	Use existing stamp until commission expires	Required on first stamp
Journal PII rules (no SSN digits)	Effective immediately — all journal entries from 3/28/2026 forward	Same
Certified-copy 15-day turnaround	Effective immediately	Same
Fee schedule (including $5 witness-signature fee)	Effective immediately	Same

Two important points. First, the bond and stamp transitions are the only parts of the rule that honor pre-existing practice. Journal, fee, and certified-copy rules apply to every PA notary from the effective date. Second, a notary whose commission lapses and who reapplies after March 28, 2026 is treated as a new appointment — $25,000 bond, new stamp compliant with the seven-digit requirement, and a fresh Pearson VUE examination under the separately published $65 exam-fee provision. 56 Pa.B. 1672

What this costs current notaries

For the approximately 75,000 PA notaries holding commissions as of March 28, 2026, the near-term costs break down like this.

Bond (at next reappointment). The Department estimates the bond premium delta at roughly $5 per year for a $25,000 versus $10,000 bond. Over a four-year commission, that is in the neighborhood of $20. Bond vendor pricing varies with credit and bundling.
Journal rework. Nothing has to be bought. The work is procedural: updating any intake template, in-office SOP, or electronic-journal field set that previously captured the last four digits of a Social Security number. Any template that still prompts for SSN digits is out of compliance.
Stamp reorder (at next reappointment). Only required when the current stamp does not show the seven-digit commission number, or at the end of the current commission. Vendors supply replacement rubber stamps at typical market prices.
Fee-schedule awareness. The $5 witness-signature fee is a revenue opportunity, not a cost — but every itemized receipt needs to price it correctly.

No retraining requirement is imposed on existing commissions by the rule itself. Separate from the rule, the Department maintains the three-hour continuing-education requirement that applies at every reappointment under 57 Pa.C.S. § 322.

What it costs new applicants

For applicants starting a new commission on or after March 28, 2026:

$42 application fee. Unchanged. PA DOS — Apply to be a Notary
$65 Pearson VUE examination fee for first-time applicants, per the final-rule fiscal impact statement. 56 Pa.B. 1672
Approved three-hour basic-education course. The rulemaking estimates market pricing for electronic education at $39–$99 per course. 56 Pa.B. 1672
$25,000 surety bond posted within 45 days of appointment.
Compliant stamp showing the seven-digit commission number.
Journal. Paper or tamper-evident electronic. Electronic journal platforms run roughly $19 per month; paper journals are a one-time purchase in the $15–$35 range from major PA supply vendors.

The 45-day post-appointment checklist in § 321 is otherwise unchanged: take the constitutional oath of office, register the signature with the county prothonotary or recorder of deeds, and record the bond. “Failure to complete within 45 days voids the commission.” PA DOS — Application Information

How this affects remote online notarization

Three provisions in the final rule touch RON practice directly:

The $20-per-act ceiling. Electronic and remote notarization fees are capped at $20 per notarial act in addition to the $5 base fee. Some platforms previously charged higher per-act fees; those must be reconciled to the new ceiling, and the receipt must itemize the base act, the $20 RON add-on, and any clerical or convenience charges separately.
§ 167.88 wind-down obligations. Technology providers must notify the Department when they cease operations and must give notaries an export window for their journals and audio-visual recordings. Pavaso’s January 1, 2026 shutdown predated § 167.88, but the rule now exists specifically to prevent the next Pavaso from leaving notaries without their records.
Technology-agnostic approach retained. The final rule did not mandate particular KBA mechanics, credential-analysis methods, or RON journal fields beyond the general 57 Pa.C.S. § 319 fields. Proposals during the rulemaking to specify those mechanics were declined, with the Department citing the need to preserve flexibility as the RON technology market evolves.

RON notaries’ core statutory obligations under 57 Pa.C.S. § 306.1 — identification, audio-visual recording, journal entry, and use of an approved vendor — are unchanged by the final rule; Chapter 167 frames and polices the surrounding technology-provider relationship.

How PA stood before the rule

The rule replaces a patchwork that was built on Act 73 of 2013 (original RULONA, effective October 26, 2017), Act 97 of 2020 (permanent RON authorization, effective October 29, 2020), the November 2022 amendments, and a proposed regulatory package published in August 2016 that was never finalized in its original form.

The practical contrast:

Topic	Pre-March 2026	Post-March 2026
Bond amount	$10,000	$25,000 (new/renewed)
Witness-signature fee	Not explicitly priced as standalone	$5 maximum
Stamp commission ID	Format varied by vendor	Seven digits, mandatory
Journal SSN handling	Last four digits commonly accepted	No part of SSN may be recorded
RON vendor wind-down	No regulatory framework	§ 167.88 notice-and-export rule
Certified journal copy	No fixed turnaround	15 days
E/RON add-on fee	Not uniformly capped by regulation	$20 per act, itemized

Anyone who is referencing the August 2016 proposed regulations PDF that remains linked from some DOS pages should treat that document as historical only. The final rule is the live law.

What to do this week, this month

This week.

Read the Notary Regulations Changes page at pa.gov/agencies/dos/programs/notaries/notary-regulations-changes in full. It is the cleanest plain-English summary the Department has published.
Audit any intake template, client form, or electronic-journal field set for Social Security digits. Remove them.
Update any fee-schedule handout or online price page to include the $5 witnessing-signature line item and the $20 per-act RON ceiling.
If Pavaso was your primary RON platform, select a replacement from the approved vendor list and file a technology-provider update with the Department within 30 days. PA DOS — Electronic or Remote Notarization

This month. 5. Put your commission expiration date in your calendar and your tax software. At reappointment you will need the $25,000 bond and a seven-digit stamp. 6. Review your bond vendor’s listed 4-year pricing for the $25,000 amount. Vendors still quoting “$10,000 PA notary bond” on their landing pages have not updated; pricing from those vendors is stale. 7. If you are new to RON or have let your e-notary registration drift, re-file the technology-provider notice — the Department uses that filing to track who is under the § 167.88 umbrella. 8. Confirm your continuing-education plan. The three-hour CE requirement attaches at reappointment, not at the effective date of the rule.