South Dakota notary fees

South Dakota notaries have been allowed to charge a fee for each instrument they notarize since long before statehood-era law was recodified. What's changed is the ceiling. On July 1, 2025, House Bill 1192 took effect and removed the $10-per-instrument maximum that the fee statute, SDCL 18-1-9, had carried for years. The statute now says a notary may charge a fee — full stop — with one long-standing exception.

That's the entire statute. It sets no minimum, no maximum, and no suggested amount, and it doesn't distinguish a one-signature acknowledgment from a lengthy document with several notarized signatures — each notarized instrument is its own chargeable act. The Secretary of State's Notary Public Handbook (July 2025 edition) and the office's own notary FAQ page both repeat the statute's wording without adding a dollar figure of their own. That's a deliberate absence, not an oversight: earlier editions of both documents did quote the $10 maximum before it was repealed.

Before July 1, 2025, SDCL 18-1-9 capped the notary fee at $10 per instrument. House Bill 1192 — officially “An Act to remove the maximum fee permitted to be charged by a notary” — passed the House 63–6 and the Senate 21–13, was signed by the Governor on March 12, 2025, and took effect July 1, 2025 along with that session's other notary-law changes, including the bond repeal covered on the home page. The statute's own source line records the amendment as SL 2025, ch 91, § 1.

Nothing else about the fee rule moved. The absentee-ballot exception is untouched, and the fee still applies “for each instrument notarized” rather than per visit or per customer.

Fees for remote online notarizations

SDCL 18-1-9 isn't limited to notarizations performed with the signer physically present — it applies to “each instrument notarized,” and South Dakota's remote online notarization statutes (SDCL 18-1-11.2 through 18-1-11.8) don't set out a separate fee rule for an electronic notarial act. See the remote online notarization page for how RON itself works and what it requires.

Who actually sets the fee

The individual notary does, subject only to the absentee-ballot exception above. South Dakota doesn't require a notary to post a fee schedule, and neither the statute nor the handbook says every customer must be charged the same amount. Deciding what to charge, like most of the day-to-day judgment calls a notary makes, is left to the notary.