Can You Notarize Online in Louisiana?

Can a will be notarized online in Louisiana?

No. A Louisiana notarial testament is excluded twice over, and this is the question people get wrong most often.

• The RON statute excludes it outright. R.S. 35:623(B) lists testaments and codicils first among the instruments that may not be executed by remote online notarization.
• The form of the testament itself requires physical presence. Civil Code article 1577 requires the testator to execute the testament in the presence of a notary and two competent witnesses, signing at the end and on each other separate page, after which the notary and both witnesses sign a declaration in the presence of the testator and each other.

Article 1577 is also famously unforgiving. Louisiana courts apply its formalities strictly, and testaments have been invalidated over defects in the attestation that look minor on the page. That is the opposite of a document to improvise on a video call.

Why Louisiana is stricter than the rest of the country

Most states that authorize remote online notarization allow it for essentially any notarial act the notary could perform in person. Louisiana does not, and the reason is structural rather than technological.

Louisiana is the only civil law state. Its most consequential private documents take the form of the authentic act, which requires the notary and two witnesses in the presence of the signer. The legislature carved those out of remote notarization rather than reengineer a four hundred year old formality around a video call. The excluded list reads like a list of the things people care most about: their will, their trust, gifts to their children, their marriage contract.

What subsection (C) actually means for your document

Subsection (C) is subtler than a flat prohibition, and it is where most confusion lives. It does not say the remote notarization is void. It says the resulting instrument is not an authentic act. The statute goes on to provide that an instrument that loses authentic status this way may still be valid as an act under private signature or as an acknowledged act, except for the categories in subsection (B), which cannot be done remotely at all.

So the question is never just “can this be notarized online.” It is “what form does this document need to take, and will an online notarization produce that form?” For an ordinary affidavit, remote is generally fine. For a document that must be authentic to do its job, remote produces a weaker instrument than the parties intended, and often nobody notices until it matters.

What online notarization is genuinely good for

Plenty. Affidavits, many acknowledgments, most powers of attorney, business documents, and routine paperwork where an authentic act is not required all work well by secure video, and a signer anywhere in Louisiana can be served without anyone driving.

The catch is a practical one rather than a legal one: the party who ultimately receives your document, a lender, a title company, a foreign consulate, a court clerk, may have its own policy against remotely notarized instruments regardless of what Louisiana law permits. That is worth confirming with the recipient before the session rather than after.

A note on out-of-state remote notaries

People often ask whether a remote notary in a more permissive state can simply handle a Louisiana document. The answer is more nuanced than either a flat yes or a flat no, and it is worth stating precisely.

Louisiana’s conflict of laws rules are generous about form. Civil Code article 3538 provides that a contract is valid as to form if it conforms to the law of the state where it was made, or the state of performance, or the parties’ common domicile, or the law governing the substance of the contract. On that rule alone, an act executed elsewhere can be formally valid.

Two limits cut against that, and they are the ones that matter here.

• Article 3538 ends with a proviso: when the law governing the substance of the contract requires a certain form for reasons of public policy, that form must be complied with. A requirement imposed under penalty of absolute nullity, as article 1541 does for donations, is the paradigm of a public-order form requirement.
• Article 3535 provides that real rights in immovables situated in Louisiana are governed by Louisiana law.

The practical takeaway is not that out-of-state notarization never works. It is that a permissive rule in another state does not by itself decide whether your Louisiana document will do what you need it to do, and the riskiest documents to assume about are exactly the ones on the excluded list above. If the document is destined for Louisiana and its form matters, confirm the form before the session, not after.