Free Colorado Notary Acknowledgment Template

A Colorado notary acknowledgment is a certificate stating that you appeared before a notary and acknowledged a signature on a record as your own. Colorado follows the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, codified at C.R.S. 24-21-501 and following.

The Colorado Secretary of State commissions notaries and publishes an official notary handbook based on that law.

Identification

A notary may rely on personal knowledge or satisfactory evidence of your identity (C.R.S. 24-21-507). For example, a passport, driver’s license, or government nondriver ID works if it’s current or expired no more than one year. That includes foreign passports and licenses. Other government IDs can work if they carry your signature or photo and satisfy the notary. A credible witness can also vouch for you under oath.

Official Stamp

Colorado requires a rectangular rubber stamp showing the notary’s name, notary ID number, commission expiration date, “STATE OF COLORADO,” and “NOTARY PUBLIC.” By contrast, embossers are off-limits entirely, since it’s illegal for a notary to provide, keep, or use one (C.R.S. 24-21-517).

Journal

Every notarial act goes in the notary’s journal (C.R.S. 24-21-519). Each entry includes the date and time, a description of the record, your name, address, and signature, plus how the notary identified you.

Notary Fees

The maximum fee is $15 per document. When the notary applies an electronic signature, including for remote notarization, the cap is $25 (C.R.S. 24-21-529). Notaries must tell you about all charges before the act and give you a written list of fees. Because fee rules can change, confirm the amount before you book.

Conflicts of Interest

A notary can’t act if they or their spouse or civil union partner is a party to or named in the record (C.R.S. 24-21-504). The same bar applies to the notary’s ancestors, descendants, and siblings.

No. Colorado bars notaries from notarizing a blank document, meaning one with a space someone could fill in after your acknowledgment (C.R.S. 24-21-525). The blanks don’t need specific answers, though. Writing “Not Applicable,” an X, or a line in unused spaces is enough, and then the notary can proceed.

This rule touches a Colorado notary acknowledgment in two places:

• The document you’re acknowledging — every blank must be filled or struck through
• The certificate itself — the handbook tells notaries not to leave a preprinted commission expiration line blank, even though the date also appears on the stamp

Checking for empty fields before the appointment saves you a second trip.

Once the document is ready, the appointment is short.

1. Go through your document and fill or strike every blank space.
2. Complete the certificate’s state, county, and signer name. For Denver, the venue reads “City and County of Denver.”
3. Bring a qualifying ID.
4. Appear before the notary and acknowledge that the signature on the record is yours.
5. The notary records a journal entry, completes the certificate, signs it, and applies the stamp.
6. Staple a separate certificate to the record, because loose certificates aren’t allowed.

Colorado’s short-form certificates appear in C.R.S. 24-21-516, and the Secretary of State highly recommends using them. For an individual acting in their own right, the form contains:

• “State of Colorado” and the county
• A statement that the record was acknowledged before the notary on a specific date
• The name of each individual acknowledging
• The notary’s official signature, title of office, and stamp

When someone signs in a representative capacity, however, the form adds their type of authority, such as officer or trustee. It then identifies the party they acted for.

Under C.R.S. 24-21-515 and 24-21-516, the notary must also sign and date the certificate when the act takes place, using the signature on file. Build your Colorado notary acknowledgment with Document Genius, then let the notary add their part.