Delaware Notary Journal Requirements — Required Since August 2023
Yes, since August 2023. Delaware's updated notary law took effect August 1, 2023 and requires notaries to maintain a journal of their notarial acts. A journal kept on paper must be a permanent bound register; Delaware's own notary guidance describes it as a register designed to deter fraud. Printed loose pages do not satisfy Delaware law.
The rule: Delaware's Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (title 29 of the Delaware Code) carries the journal duty and the uniform format rule: a tangible journal must be a permanent, bound register, and an electronic journal must be in a permanent, tamper-evident electronic format. The Delaware notary office publishes journal guidance at notary.delaware.gov.
Last updated: August 2026.
What each Delaware entry must include
The date and time of the act, the type of act, a description of the document, how the signer was identified, the fee charged, and, per the state's journal guidance, "the signature, and printed name and address of each person whose signature is notarized or who requests a notarial act." The signer signs the Delaware journal. Two numbers stay out: the guidance states that a notary "shall not record a Social Security or credit card number in the journal."
Retention, custody, and what happens later
The journal is retained for ten years after the last notarial act chronicled in it (29 Del. C. § 4332). It stays secure under the notary's exclusive control and is not used by anyone else. A lost or stolen journal is promptly reported to the Secretary of State. When a commission ends, the notary either retains the journal and tells the Secretary of State where it is kept, or transmits it to the Secretary of State or an approved repository; on a notary's death, whoever holds it transmits it the same way.
What Delaware notaries should buy
A bound journal from any notary supplier, or a compliant electronic journal. Nothing else satisfies the requirement for the journal itself. One register at a time holds every act until it fills; a bound book with numbered pages is what makes an old entry findable and hard to tamper with, which is the point Delaware's guidance makes.
Questions Delaware notaries ask
I was commissioned before August 2023. Does this apply to me? Yes. The journal duty applies to Delaware notaries for acts performed since the law took effect, whenever you were commissioned.
Can I keep my Delaware journal electronically? Yes, in a permanent, tamper-evident electronic format. Loose printed pages qualify as neither a bound register nor a compliant electronic journal.
Where do I check the current Delaware rules? The state's notary office publishes journal requirements at notary.delaware.gov, and it is the authority on the details.
The honest note from us
Prep & Print Notary Journal sells a $19 app that prints filled-in journal pages, and printed pages do not comply with Delaware's bound-register rule. If you are commissioned in a state that leaves the journal format to you, the app is at prepandprintnotary.com. Delaware notaries: buy the bound book or a compliant electronic journal.
Update, September 2026: we make a bound edition now. The Prep & Print bound journal is on Amazon — permanently bound, one signing per two-page spread, preprinted page and entry numbers, signature and thumbprint boxes, in five cover colors.
Every state's rule is on one page: Notary Journal Requirements by State.
Sources: Delaware notary journal requirements; 29 Del. C. § 4332 (journal). General information, not legal advice.
