Guide
Find a notary near you
Search your town or ZIP code for notaries who travel to you — when each is free, what it's likely to cost, their record and reviews — and open a notary's page to ask.
Find a notary lists the notaries who travel to where you are — with when each one is free, about what it would cost, and what other clients have said. Searching is free, and you don't need an account.
Search
Say where, and when. On the Hand & Seal home page, under Need a notary?, choose What are you signing? if you know, type a ZIP code or a town in Where?, pick a day on the calendar in When? — or leave it empty for any day — and choose See who is free. Find a notary, at the top of Hand & Seal's own pages, opens the same search, with the list of notaries under it — and under the list, Notaries by state, a page for each state with the towns its notaries come to, and Towns with the most notaries.
Narrow the list. Under the search, choose Today, Tomorrow, This weekend or Next week (Monday to Sunday) for who is free then — the day you picked shows there too, and choosing it again shows any day; Evenings, 5 pm on keeps the day you chose and narrows it to its evening, or with no day chosen shows who is free an evening in the next seven days; ✓ Commission checked for notaries whose commission Hand & Seal has checked against their state's own list; Language for someone who speaks yours. (✓ Commission checked is offered only where Hand & Seal can check the state's list.) Sort puts them in another order — Soonest free, Nearest or Lowest estimate. Clear starts again. The heading over the list names what you chose — and for a town nobody listed comes to yet, says so, whatever day you chose; when nobody matches, the box under it offers Any day, Any time of day or Without the filters — for a day nobody is free, the nearest days someone is, and how many; for a town nobody listed comes to yet, the nearest towns that do have notaries.
Compare the notaries. Each one shows their town and about how far they'd come to you, the languages they speak besides English, their badges, their rating and how many signings they've done on Hand & Seal, and their next free time — Free … opens a request for that very time. Under it is how soon they usually answer: Usually answers within 15 min, say — the middle of the times they took to answer the requests they were sent in the last six months, from when each reached them to their first answer. Some requests aren't counted, such as one called off within half an hour of being sent: How does the directory list me? says which. Any other with no answer counts as long as it waited, until it closed, was called off or two days had passed, whichever came first. It's worked out each day from the requests that reached them before that day. Nothing is said until at least 10 are counted, sent by at least 3 different people or companies, nor when it's slower than 4 hours. Beside it is an estimate: one figure — their published fee for one notarized signature, with travel to the middle of your town in it. Before you've said where, it says from: the least it comes to, with the least their travel costs. Where a notary quotes travel themselves, there's no figure, and the card says Ask for a price — as it does for a loan signing, a refinance, an apostille or an I-9, which aren't priced by the signature: the notary gives you the total with their answer. What you chose under What are you signing? goes with you to a notary's page, and into their request form. So does the town or ZIP code you searched — not a county, and not one of the few ZIP codes that lie across a state line: their page's What would it cost? opens with it in Where — where no total is shown yet, choose Estimate — and their request form's Town and ZIP starts with it. The notary confirms the real total when they accept.
Open a notary's page. Choose their name. With a day picked, their page opens on that day's free times, and ← Back to results takes you back to the list. Their page says who they are, how many signings they've done here, how soon they usually answer and how far they travel — and, beside it, Ask for a time with their free times. Under that, Checked by Hand & Seal is the one thing we checked ourselves: that their commission is on their state's list of notaries. Stated by and their name is what they say of themselves — a bond, insurance, a certification — which we haven't checked. On the list, a credential they state ends in · stated.
Check what they charge. Services and fees lists each notarization, travel and any extras. Where a state sets the most a notary may charge for an act, the page says so. What would it cost? works out a total: choose the Kind of notarization — or leave it at Not sure — the number of signatures and your town or ZIP code, and choose Estimate. Opened from a search for a loan signing, a refinance, an apostille or an I-9, it shows no total — none is priced by the signature — and the notary gives you the total with their answer.
Read their reviews. Reviews, near the foot of the page, are left only by clients whose signing was done through Hand & Seal, and a notary can't remove one. Read all … reviews shows every one.
Ask for a time. Choose a day and a time under Ask for a time, or Choose a time and ask. The rest is in Ask a notary for a signing.
How the list is ordered
- Recommended (the usual order) puts first the notaries whose commission Hand & Seal has checked against their state's list — compared only with notaries of the same state, and nobody is placed lower where Hand & Seal can't check a state's list. After that the order changes every day, so someone new is seen as often as someone with hundreds of signings. A badge earned for keeping signings — Reliably on time, Ships by the next morning — gives a small lift.
- Nobody can pay to be listed higher, and saying no to a request never counts against a notary.
- A notary is listed only for places they travel to, and only in a state for which they have given Hand & Seal a commission whose expiry date has not passed, or one their state grants for life.
Good to know
- No map, on purpose. A mobile notary comes to you, so the list shows how far each would travel instead of where they live. Their own page shows the area they cover, with the towns in it.
- Free times are shown two weeks ahead — the days with a dot on the calendar. A later day can be picked too, up to 120 days ahead: the list then shows the notaries who can be asked to come that day, each with Ask for and the day, which opens their request form on it, under Ask for another time — they answer with a time.
- Can't find your town? Try its ZIP code, or the town and its state — “Irvine, CA”. If a name fits more than one place, or starts the names of others — “Laguna” starts Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and Laguna Beach — the list shows one of them — a town in a state where notaries are listed comes first — and says which, with Did you mean the others. It's the town at the top of the suggestions under Where? as you type.
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