No notary seal may be manufactured or sold without authorization from the Secretary of State (Government Code §8207.2). When a notary's seal is lost, damaged, destroyed, or otherwise rendered unusable, the process to obtain a replacement begins with written notice to the SOS.
Upon receiving that notice, if the notary requests it, the Secretary of State must issue a Certificate of Authorization within five working days (Government Code §8207.3(e)). There is no fee for this certificate.
The notary then presents the Certificate of Authorization to an approved vendor to order the new seal. The vendor retains a copy and submits the original — containing a sample seal impression — to the SOS for recordkeeping. No authorized vendor may manufacture a seal without first receiving this certificate.
Exam Tip: The five-working-day timeline is specific and testable. Note also that a notary without a working seal should not continue performing notarizations — the seal is a required element of most notarial acts. The correct course of action upon losing a seal is: notify SOS immediately, request the Certificate, wait for it, then order a replacement.
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