Kansas Notary Journal Requirements — Required Since 2022, Bound if on Paper
Yes, since 2022. Kansas adopted the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts effective January 1, 2022, and with it a journal requirement for every notary. A journal kept on paper must be a permanent bound register with numbered pages. Printed loose pages do not satisfy Kansas law.
The rule: Kansas's Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (Kansas Statutes chapter 53) requires a notary public to maintain a journal chronicling all notarial acts performed, and follows the uniform format rule: a tangible journal must be a permanent, bound register with numbered pages, and an electronic journal must be in a permanent, tamper-evident electronic format.
Last updated: August 2026.
What each Kansas entry must include
The date and time of the act, a description of the record and the type of act, the name and address of each individual for whom the act is performed, how the signer was identified, and the fee charged. The Secretary of State's notary guidance walks through the details.
What Kansas notaries should buy
A bound journal with numbered pages from any notary supplier, or a compliant electronic journal. Nothing else satisfies the statute for the journal itself. The statute allows one journal on a tangible medium, or one or more electronic journals for acts on electronic records; the tangible register holds every act until it fills.
Retention and the journal's life after the commission
The journal is retained for ten years after the last notarial act chronicled in it, under the notary's sole control (K.S.A. 53-5a20; K.A.R. 7-43-15). A lost or stolen journal is promptly reported to the Secretary of State. When a commission ends by resignation, revocation, or suspension, the notary either keeps the journal and tells the Secretary of State where it is, or transmits it to an approved repository; on a notary's death, whoever holds it has the same choices and the same duty to inform the Secretary of State.
Questions Kansas notaries ask
I was commissioned before 2022. Does the journal rule apply to me? Yes. The requirement applies to Kansas notaries for acts performed since the law took effect, regardless of when you were commissioned.
Can I keep my Kansas 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 Kansas rules? The Kansas Secretary of State's office publishes the notary handbook and current guidance, 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 Kansas's bound-register rule. If you are commissioned in a state that leaves the journal format to you, the app is at prepandprintnotary.com. Kansas 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: K.S.A. 53-5a20 (journal); K.A.R. 7-43-15; Kansas Secretary of State notary page. General information, not legal advice.
