A jurat certificate is the block of notarized text that proves you appeared before a notary public, swore or affirmed that a document’s contents are true, and signed it while the notary watched. The word comes from the Latin for “to swear,” and the U.S. Department of State defines a jurat as “the written statement attesting to the administration of an oath or affirmation.”1U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 7 FAM 850 Taking an Affidavit If a form tells you it must be “sworn to” or “signed under penalty of perjury” in front of a notary, a jurat is the notarial act you’re being asked for.
What a Jurat Proves (and What It Doesn’t)
A jurat does three things at once. It proves you showed up in person, it proves you swore the document was truthful, and it proves you signed it right there in the notary’s presence.
Here is the point that trips people up. The notary is not vouching for the accuracy of what the document says. The notary has no way to know whether your statements are factually correct and takes no responsibility for them. What the notary certifies is that you took an oath and signed. If the contents turn out to be false, that falls on you, and the consequences can be serious.
When You Need a Jurat Instead of an Acknowledgment
Jurats appear wherever someone has to formally swear that a written statement is true. The clearest example is an affidavit: a written declaration of facts offered as evidence in a legal proceeding or government process. The State Department describes the purpose of taking an affidavit as “to have an individual make a statement under penalty of perjury by personally swearing to or affirming the statement.”1U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 7 FAM 850 Taking an Affidavit
You will also see jurats on financial disclosure statements, immigration applications, insurance claims where fraud is a concern, certain court filings, and any government form that includes language like “signed under penalty of perjury.” A simple rule works when the document doesn’t say: if it makes factual claims and somebody could face consequences for lying about them, a jurat is probably what’s required.
An acknowledgment is a different notarial act and is not interchangeable. The differences come down to oath, timing, and purpose:
- A jurat requires you to swear or affirm that the contents are true. An acknowledgment does not; you simply confirm that you signed the document voluntarily.
- For a jurat, you must sign in the notary’s presence. For an acknowledgment, you can sign ahead of time and later appear to confirm the signature is yours.
- A jurat is about the truth of the content. An acknowledgment is about the authenticity of the signature.
Affidavits and sworn statements take jurats. Deeds, powers of attorney, and most contracts take acknowledgments. If the document has a pre-printed notarial certificate at the bottom, read the wording closely because it tells you which act is being requested. If you’re unsure, ask the entity that wants the document. The notary cannot choose for you; they perform whichever act the document or the signer requests, and using the wrong one can invalidate the paperwork.
What Happens at the Appointment
Getting a jurat is straightforward from the signer’s side, but there are a few steps you cannot skip. You have to appear in person. Unlike an acknowledgment, a jurat requires you to sign the document while the notary watches, so do not sign it beforehand.1U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 7 FAM 850 Taking an Affidavit A notary following proper procedure will refuse to complete a jurat on a document you’ve already signed, because they need to witness the signing themselves.
Bring a current government-issued photo ID such as a driver’s license or passport. Some states also allow identification through the notary’s personal knowledge of you, or through credible witnesses who can vouch for your identity when you lack acceptable ID.
The notary will verify your identity and then administer an oath or an affirmation. A typical oath sounds like: “Do you solemnly swear that the statements in this document are true to the best of your knowledge and belief, so help you God?” If you prefer not to reference God, you can request an affirmation instead, which carries the same legal weight but uses secular language. The State Department’s affirmation begins: “Do you solemnly, sincerely, and truly affirm and declare under penalty of perjury that…”1U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual. 7 FAM 850 Taking an Affidavit You must respond verbally. A nod is not enough.
After you take the oath and sign, the notary completes the certificate, adds their signature and official seal, and records the notarization in their journal.
What the Certificate Looks Like
The jurat certificate is a block of text either printed on the document or attached as a separate page. Exact wording varies by state, but the standard form follows a recognizable pattern: “Subscribed and sworn to (or affirmed) before me this ___ day of [month], [year].” Below that line you’ll find the notary’s signature, printed name, commission expiration date, and official seal.
The certificate also records the venue, meaning the state and county where the notarization took place, and the exact date. Those details matter if the jurat is ever challenged, because they establish when and where the oath was administered. The type of identification used may be noted on the certificate or recorded only in the notary’s journal, depending on the state.
The Perjury Stakes
The oath you take is not ceremonial. It carries real criminal exposure. Under federal law, anyone who takes an oath before an authorized officer and then “willfully states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true” is guilty of perjury, punishable by up to five years in federal prison, a fine, or both.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1621 Perjury Generally State perjury laws add their own penalties, and many track the federal structure closely.
The key word is “willfully.” Honest mistakes are not perjury. If you swear an affidavit is true and later discover you got a date wrong, that is not a crime. Perjury requires that you knew the statement was false when you swore to it. Still, signing a sworn document without reading it carefully is a bad idea. “I didn’t bother to check” is a hard argument to make to a judge.
Remote Online Notarization
You don’t always have to visit a notary’s office in person. As of 2025, at least 44 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws authorizing remote online notarization, commonly called RON. These laws allow a notary to perform notarial acts, including jurats, through a live audio-video connection.
A RON jurat works the same way in substance. The notary verifies your identity, usually through knowledge-based authentication questions and ID credential analysis, administers the oath verbally over video, watches you sign electronically, and completes the certificate with a digital seal. The audio-video session is recorded, and most states require the notary to retain that recording for five to ten years. Check your state’s RON rules before scheduling, because some states restrict which document types can be notarized remotely or require the notary to hold a commission in a particular state.
Fixing Mistakes on the Certificate
Errors happen. How they get corrected depends on how serious they are.
For minor errors like a wrong date or a typo, most states allow the notary to draw a single line through the incorrect information, write the correct information nearby, and initial and date the change. The notary should also note the correction in their journal. White-out and scribbling are never acceptable because they raise questions about tampering.
Major errors require starting over. If the notary used the wrong type of certificate, failed to administer the oath, or didn’t properly verify identity, the original notarization is defective. The signer has to appear again, go through the full identification and oath process a second time, and receive a new certificate. The notary should never alter or reuse the defective one.
When a document went out with incorrect or missing notarial wording, a notary can sometimes attach a corrected certificate on a separate page, often called a loose certificate, by printing the correct wording and stapling it securely to the original. This is common when the pre-printed jurat language on a form doesn’t match what the notary’s state requires. The loose certificate gets its own entry in the journal.
What a Jurat Costs
Most states cap what a notary can charge per act. The caps are generally modest, running from as low as $2 to around $25 per signature depending on the state. A few states set no maximum and leave the fee to the market. Mobile notaries who travel to you typically add a travel fee, and RON platforms may charge their own service fee on top of the notarial fee. Banks and credit unions often notarize documents for account holders at no charge, which makes them a good first call when you need a jurat on short notice.