What Is the NY Notary Oath of Office (Form DOS-2201)?

The Oath of Office, filed on New York State form DOS-2201, is a required part of both becoming a notary and renewing your commission. Here is what it is and how to complete it.

What the oath says

On the DOS-2201 you swear to support the U.S. and New York State constitutions and to faithfully discharge the duties of a notary public. You print your name exactly as it will appear on your notary signature.

It must be notarized

The oath must be signed in the presence of a commissioned New York notary (or a county clerk). That is the key requirement: you cannot just sign it yourself. You can get the form and notarize it online over secure video.

Out of New York State?

If your legal residence is outside New York, you skip the NYS home address section and use your NYS business address instead, then notarize the oath online from wherever you are.

What to do with it

Upload the signed, notarized oath to your application in New York Business Express along with your fee.

Why an oath at all

It is easy to read the oath as a formality on the way to a stamp. It is not. A notary public in New York is a public officer, and the oath is the moment you accept that role.

What you are swearing is that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York, and that you will faithfully discharge the duties of the office. That is the same undertaking a judge or a county clerk makes, scaled to a smaller office.

It matters in practice because the authority you are about to exercise belongs to the state rather than to you. When you refuse to notarize a document because the signer cannot produce valid identification, or because the signer plainly does not understand what they are signing, you are not being difficult. You are doing the thing you swore to do.

The rule people trip over: you cannot notarize your own oath

This is the single most common stall in a New York notary application or renewal, and the reason is straightforward.

A notary cannot notarize their own signature. Not on the oath, not on anything. The whole point of a notarial act is that an impartial officer verifies somebody else’s signature, and there is no version of that where you verify your own.

Nor can you use a notary who has an interest in the matter. A spouse, a business partner, somebody who benefits from your commission. Use an unrelated commissioned notary.

Filling it in without creating a problem

Three things account for nearly every rejected oath.

The name. Print your name exactly as it will appear on your notarial signature and on your stamp. Not a nickname, not an abbreviated middle initial if you sign with the full middle name. Every downstream record keys off this, and a mismatch between the oath, the application and the stamp is the kind of small inconsistency that surfaces two years later when a county clerk cannot authenticate your signature for an apostille.

The address. New York residents use the home address section. If your legal residence is outside New York and you hold the commission on the strength of a New York place of business, you skip that section and give the New York business name and address instead. See renewing from out of state.

Signing early. Do not sign the oath before you are in front of the notary. A notary who was not present for the signature cannot complete the certificate honestly, and any notary who offers to backfill it for you is showing you exactly how they handle everything else.

What the appointment looks like

Short. Bring the completed but unsigned form and valid unexpired photo identification. The notary confirms who you are, administers the oath, watches you sign, completes the notarial certificate and applies the seal.

Expired identification is the most common reason an appointment cannot be completed, and expired means expired regardless of how recently it lapsed. Check the date before you book rather than after you arrive.

Doing it online, from any state

The oath can be sworn over secure video with a commissioned New York notary, which is why an applicant in another state does not have to travel for it. Identity verification is stricter than what happens across a counter, the session is recorded, and the completed document downloads immediately.

We handle oaths of office online in a few minutes. Scan the notarized oath cleanly and upload it with the rest of your application, because a crooked photograph taken in poor light is a rejection and a rejection costs you days.

After the oath

The oath is one step, not the finish. The application and fee go in together, and once approved, your commission is forwarded to the county clerk where you live or work, where your signature is filed. That county filing is what allows the clerk to authenticate your signature later.

See the full renewal walkthrough or, if you are starting out, how to become a notary in New York.

Questions people actually ask about the oath

Can a county clerk administer it instead of a notary? Yes. A county clerk can administer the oath. For most applicants a commissioned notary is simply faster and easier to reach.

Does the oath expire? The oath itself is not on a clock, but it belongs to the application it accompanies. Swear a fresh one for each application or renewal rather than reusing a copy from four years ago.

Do I swear a new one at every renewal? Yes. Every renewal requires a new oath of office. This surprises notaries who assumed renewal was a fee and a form.

Can I affirm rather than swear? An affirmation is available to anyone whose beliefs do not permit an oath. It carries identical legal weight. Tell the notary before you begin so the wording is right.

What if I make a mistake on the form? Start again on a clean form. Do not scribble over an entry, do not use correction fluid, and do not have the notary initial a change to a sworn statement after the fact.

The habit the oath should leave you with

Most complaints against notaries do not come from people who set out to do something dishonest. They come from people being helpful.

Notarizing for a signer who was not physically present, because it was a friend and they were running late. Completing a certificate on a document signed earlier that morning. Filling in a blank on someone else’s document because they asked. Telling a signer which form they need, or what a clause means, because they looked lost and nobody else was going to help them.

Every one of those feels like kindness in the moment. Each one is a breach of the duties you swore to discharge, and the last one is the unauthorized practice of law. The oath is worth reading once slowly for exactly that reason: the restrictions in it are what make your stamp worth anything to the person relying on it.

Keep a copy

Before you upload the notarized oath, save a clean scan for your own records alongside your commission certificate, your journal, your insurance and your stamp order. Four years from now you will be doing this again, and having last cycle’s paperwork in one place turns the renewal into a fifteen minute job rather than an afternoon of searching.

See also: notarizing the New York bar admission application

Related: How to renew your NY notary commission · Renewing from out of state