To resign a notary commission in Colorado, log in to your account on the Secretary of State’s website, open your summary page, and choose “Resign” under Actions. There’s no fee, no form to mail, and no waiting period. Once you submit, the commission ends, and your remaining obligations shift to your stamp and your journal.
Submitting the Resignation Online
Sign in with your notary ID and password, scroll to the Actions section on your summary page, and select Resign. Submitting the request takes the commission out of effect. The Secretary of State’s FAQ directs all living notaries to this online portal and does not describe a mail-in alternative.
When You Have to Resign
Colorado does not let you quietly let the commission sit. If you no longer want to serve, the law requires you to resign. The same rule applies if you no longer live or work in Colorado.
People often assume they can stop notarizing and wait for the commission to expire on its own. That approach works in some states; it does not work here. A notary who stops notarizing without resigning stays listed as active in state records, and Colorado treats that as a violation.
Disabling Your Stamp
After you resign, you have to make your stamping device permanently unusable. The statute lets you destroy, deface, damage, erase, or otherwise secure it so no one can use it to perform a notarial act. The goal is fraud prevention: a working stamp with no active commission behind it is a liability.
You no longer send the stamp to the Secretary of State’s office for disposal. That was the earlier rule. Under the current Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, disabling the stamp is entirely on you.
If the stamp is lost or stolen rather than voluntarily destroyed, you must notify the Secretary of State in writing within 30 days of discovering the loss.
What to Do With Your Journal
Your journal is a permanent record. After resignation, you must keep it for ten years from the date of the last notarial act recorded in it, and you must tell the Secretary of State where it is being held.
If you don’t want to keep it yourself, you have two options:
- Transmit the journal to the Colorado State Archives.
- Leave it with the firm or employer where you performed the notarizations in the regular course of business.
What Still Applies After You Resign
Resigning does not cut your tie to the notarizations you already performed. Those acts can be examined years later, especially in real estate closings, estate disputes, and fraud investigations. A former notary may be asked to verify a past notarization, describe their process, or testify.
That is the practical reason behind the ten-year retention rule. If a document you notarized is challenged, the journal entry is usually the best evidence of what happened. Former notaries who destroyed or misplaced their journals early have far less to work with when a dispute surfaces.
Penalties for Skipping These Steps
A notary who knowingly and willfully violates the duties in the notarial acts statute commits official misconduct, classified as a petty offense. The notary and any surety on their bond are also liable for damages caused by the misconduct.
Performing notarial acts without a current commission is treated separately. The Secretary of State can act against the person’s ability to hold a commission under CRS 24-21-523, and the statute preserves other civil and criminal remedies for anyone harmed.
Willfully impersonating a notary without being lawfully commissioned is a petty offense under CRS 24-21-532. Unlawfully possessing and using a former notary’s journal, seal, or related records is a petty offense under CRS 24-21-533. That last provision is why disabling your stamp matters: if someone finds your old seal and uses it fraudulently, the fallout can reach past the person who misused it.
Resigning the Commission of a Notary Who Has Died
If the notary has passed away, a family member or personal representative can resign the commission by filing a Resignation of Deceased Notary Form through the Secretary of State’s website. The representative should then destroy any stamps and mail the journals and related documents to the Colorado State Archives.