Online Notary in Massachusetts: Status, ID Rules, and Recording

You cannot currently use an online notary in Massachusetts. A permanent remote online notarization law took effect on January 1, 2024, but the Secretary of the Commonwealth has not finished the regulations, training, and notification forms the statute requires before any notary can legally offer the service. Until that rulemaking wraps up, every notarization in Massachusetts has to happen in person.

Where Things Stand Right Now

The authorizing law is Chapter 222, Section 28 of the Massachusetts General Laws, enacted through Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. The statute itself conditions the program on the Secretary adopting rules covering how a remote notarial act is performed, how a signer’s identity is verified through credential analysis, and what audio-video platforms notaries may use.¹

The Secretary’s office has said directly that “the training and notification form aren’t yet available, so notaries shouldn’t use online remote platforms at this time,” and that it is still reviewing public comments as it develops the rules.² The Massachusetts Land Court has confirmed the same thing for registered land documents: remote online notarization is not available until the regulatory process finishes.³

So the short version: the law is real, the service is not. Any Massachusetts notary offering an “online” notarization today is operating outside what the Secretary has authorized.

What To Do If You Need a Notary Today

Your only legitimate option in Massachusetts right now is traditional in-person notarization. Banks, law offices, shipping stores, and town clerks are the usual places to find one.

If you genuinely cannot appear in person, one workaround is to use a notary commissioned in another state that already has an active remote online notarization program. Before you do, confirm with whoever will receive the signed document — a lender, a court, a title company, a government agency — that they will accept an out-of-state remote notarization for your specific document type. Not every recipient will, and finding out after the fact is expensive.

How Online Notarization Will Work Once It Launches

When the Secretary’s regulations are in place, a Massachusetts-commissioned notary who is physically located in the Commonwealth will be able to notarize for a remotely located signer over a live audio-video connection. The notary and signer have to see and hear each other clearly throughout, and the entire act has to happen in one continuous, real-time session. You can’t start, pause for a few hours, and resume later.¹

In practice, you’ll connect to a secure video platform, the notary will verify your identity, you’ll electronically sign the document, and the notary will attach an electronic seal and a tamper-evident digital certificate. Any later alteration to the document will break that seal and show up on inspection.

You’ll need a computer or mobile device with a working webcam and microphone and an internet connection stable enough to carry continuous video. The platform itself must meet the Secretary’s technical standards and allow reasonably secure transmission protected from interception by anyone other than the participants.¹ Fill in every informational field on your document in advance; the only thing left for the session should be your signature.

The statute doesn’t set a maximum fee for remote online notarization. What a Massachusetts RON session will cost won’t be clear until the Secretary publishes the final rules.

Documents You Still Can’t Notarize Online

Even after the program launches, two categories of documents are off-limits for remote notarization under the statute. Notaries cannot use communication technology to notarize any record related to the electoral process, and they cannot notarize wills, codicils, or any document that purports to be a will or codicil.¹ If you need a will notarized, you’ll have to appear in person. That’s a statutory exclusion the Secretary’s regulations cannot waive.

Affidavits, acknowledgments, real estate deeds, mortgages, powers of attorney, and trusts are expected to be eligible once the program is operational.

Where You Can Be When You Sign

The notary has to be physically in Massachusetts during the session. There is no flexibility on that.

You, the signer, have more room. Nothing in the statute requires you to be in Massachusetts, and the law even contemplates signers outside the United States. For international signers, two conditions apply: the document must relate to a matter before a U.S. court or government entity, or involve property or a transaction substantially connected to the United States; and the act of signing must not be prohibited by the foreign country where you are located.¹ This matters for military members stationed abroad and for people closing on Massachusetts property from overseas.

Proving Who You Are

The statute gives notaries three ways to confirm your identity during a remote session. The notary can rely on personal knowledge of you, accept a sworn statement from a credible witness who personally knows both you and the notary, or use at least two different identity proofing processes or services.¹

Most signers will encounter the third option. The statute specifically mentions credential analysis, which uses software to check whether an ID is authentic by examining its visual, physical, or cryptographic security features and verifying details against the issuing source.¹ Expect to hold a government-issued photo ID up to your camera so the platform can scan it. The exact combination of methods the Secretary will require is still being worked out.

The Session Gets Recorded

Every remote notarial act has to be recorded on audio and video. The notary must keep that recording, or have it kept by a designated repository, for 10 years from the date it was made.¹ The long retention window exists because disputes about forged signatures or coerced signers can surface years later, and the recording is direct evidence.

Notaries also have to maintain an electronic journal. On request, they must provide electronic copies of journal entries and access to the related recording to the parties involved in the transaction, to a title insurer auditing its agent, or to anyone with a subpoena or court order.⁴ As the signer, you have the right to request your own recording later if you need it.

Real Estate and the Registries of Deeds

Not every county recording office accepts electronic documents. When a document has been notarized online but needs to be filed with a registry that only takes paper, someone has to “paper out” the record: print the full electronic document with its digital notarizations and attach a certificate confirming the printout is a true copy of the electronic original. The specific requirements for that certificate vary by jurisdiction.

For Massachusetts real estate in particular, the Land Court has indicated remote online notarization for registered land documents cannot begin until the Secretary’s regulations are finalized.³ Even once online notarization is live, check with your local registry of deeds about whether it accepts electronic recordings or wants a papered-out version.

If you’re waiting for the program to open, the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s remote online notarization page is where updates on draft regulations and public comment periods will appear.²

1
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 222 – Section 28
2
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Remote Online Notarization
3
Mass.gov. Memo re: Repeal of Electronic Notarization and Enactment of Remote Online Notarization
4
Mass.gov. Massachusetts Code Chapter 222 Section 28