Here is the short answer. There is no rule anywhere in Virginia that stops a notary from working on a Sunday. Section 47.1-19 sets what a notary may charge and section 47.1-15 sets what a notary may not do, and neither one mentions a day of the week. The reason everything near you is closed is not the law. It is that most notaries sit inside a business that keeps business hours.
A notary who travels does not have that problem, which is the actual answer to the search you just typed.
Why the free options are closed
Think about where notaries usually live. A bank branch. A shipping store. A tax office. A law firm. Every one of those is closed Sunday, and most of them are closed by 5 on Saturday too.
The bank is the one that stings, because it is free for members and people plan around it. Then Sunday comes and there is no teller, and even on Monday the list a bank will actually stamp is a short one. Wills, advance directives, and I-9 forms get refused at plenty of branches on a Tuesday afternoon, never mind a weekend.
No, there is no Sunday rule
People ask this constantly, so it is worth saying plainly. Virginia commissions notaries through the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, for a 4-year term. The commission does not come with a schedule attached. A notarial act performed at 2pm on a Sunday is exactly as valid as one performed at 10am on a Wednesday.
What the statute does regulate is conduct, not calendar. Section 47.1-15 lists what a notary may never do, on any day, and a weekend appointment gets no exemptions from it.
What does not change on a Sunday is everything else. The signer still has to be physically present, the document still has to be complete, and the ID still has to be current. Those rules are the same 3 requirements that apply any other day.
What "24 hour notary" usually means
You will see listings that say 24 hours or 24/7. Read them carefully, because that phrase is doing 2 different jobs.
- Sometimes it means a real after-hours service. Somebody actually answers and actually drives out.
- Often it means the phone is on. The posted hours on the same listing say Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. We found that exact mismatch on a listing ranking at the top for Suffolk while researching this market.
The test is simple. Ask for a confirmed time and a written quote before you agree to anything. A service that can give you both on a Sunday afternoon is a real one.
What a Sunday visit actually costs
The notarial act is capped by statute at $10, and it is capped at $10 on Sunday too. The only thing Virginia lets a notary add is the actual and reasonable expense of traveling to you, agreed with you in advance. Our post on what a notary costs in Virginia walks through why the word act matters more than the day of the week.
Be careful with anyone who quotes you a single blended number and will not break it out. A number above $10 with no explanation is not something you can check.
The weekend jobs that are actually urgent
Most Sunday calls are not people being fussy. They are these:
- A hospital or hospice signing. A family gets told on Saturday that a decision is needed, and whether the hospital has its own notary is usually no.
- A Monday discharge or transfer. The paperwork has to be done before the ambulance comes.
- A closing packet with a deadline. Out-of-state sellers and mail-away signings do not care that it is the weekend.
- A document headed overseas on Monday. The notarization can happen Sunday even though the state's authentication office will not open until the morning.
- A travel consent form. A child flying with 1 parent or a grandparent, and the flight is Monday morning.
- A power of attorney before a procedure. Which raises its own question about whether a power of attorney needs notarizing at all.
How to book one without losing the day
Have 3 things ready before you call anybody: what the document is, where the signing will happen, and how many people are signing. That is the same short list that decides whether a relative can help, and it is what lets somebody quote you honestly in 1 message instead of 4.
If you are not sure what a travelling notary even does differently, we wrote what a mobile notary is separately. And if the signing is at a home, an office, or a facility anywhere in the region, that is what a mobile notary in Suffolk exists to do.