TreasuryDirect Forms: Notary or Bank Certifying Officer? (2026 Table)

Few things in the savings-bond and Treasury world cause as much confusion as one small box at the bottom of a form: the line that says who has to watch you sign. It is tempting to assume that a notary public is the universal answer to any paper that needs a witnessed signature, so you walk into a notary’s office, get a stamp, and mail the form to Minnesota, and then discover that on that particular form the stamp was the wrong kind. TreasuryDirect has several paper forms, and they do not all follow the same rule.

The short answer: the forms that move money or securities out of an electronic TreasuryDirect account, or that change the account’s details (FS Forms 5511, 5512 and 5446), require a certifying officer and say outright that a notary is not acceptable. The forms that deal with paper savings bonds and with account authorization (FS Forms 1522, 4000 and 5444) accept either a notary or a certifying officer. FS Form 5336, for a deceased owner’s securities, sits in between: a certifying officer is the rule, and a notary is allowed only when the transaction is for paper savings bonds alone. Check the table below before you book anything.

The table, form by form

Every row below comes from the current text of the form itself, each revised in 2026. Nothing here depends on a bank’s own policy, which is a separate matter and one worth a phone call.

Form	What it is for	Who may certify your signature
FS Form 5511 (Mar 2026)	Transfer Request: move securities out of TreasuryDirect	Certifying officer only. “Notary certification is not acceptable.”
FS Form 5512 (Apr 2026)	Redemption and/or Bank Change Request	Certifying officer only. “Notary certification is not acceptable.”
FS Form 5446 (Apr 2026)	Offline Transaction Request: name, SSN, date of birth, registration and entity-account changes	Certifying officer only. “Notary certification is not acceptable.”
FS Form 5444 (Mar 2026)	Account Authorization	Notary or certifying officer. A Bank Address Stamp is not acceptable.
FS Form 1522 (Apr 2026)	Cash paper savings bonds by mail	Up to $1,000 of redemption value: no certification, copy of ID instead. Above $1,000: notary or certifying officer.
FS Form 4000 (Apr 2026)	Reissue of paper savings bonds	Notary or certifying officer.
FS Form 5336 (Apr 2026)	Decedent’s securities, estate settled without administration	Certifying officer. A notary only if the transaction is for paper savings bonds only.

The pattern hiding in the table

Read the table by the kind of asset involved and the pattern becomes clear. The three forms that insist on a certifying officer, 5511, 5512 and 5446, all act on an electronic TreasuryDirect account: one moves securities out of it, one redeems bonds held in it or changes the bank information attached to it, and one changes the identity details on which the account is built. The three forms that accept a notary, 1522, 4000 and 5444, concern paper bonds, or in the case of 5444 the authorization that activates an account. The estate form, 5336, straddles the two worlds and its rule follows the assets: a notary is enough only when the whole transaction is paper savings bonds.

That is our reading of the texts rather than a sentence Treasury prints anywhere, so treat it as a rule of thumb and not as a substitute for the certification box on your own form. But as a rule of thumb it saves real time. If your paperwork touches an electronic TreasuryDirect account, plan on a bank or credit union. If it touches a drawer of old paper bonds, a notary is usually on the menu.

What a certifying officer actually is

The forms never define the job title in a glossary, but they describe it. FS Form 5511 says the account owner or account manager “must appear before and establish identification to the satisfaction of an authorized certifying officer and sign the application in the officer’s presence.” The same instructions add that “for certifications within the United States, the certifying officer must be authorized to bind his or her institution by his or her acts and guarantee signatures to assignments of securities or certify assignments of securities.” That is a much narrower job than witnessing a signature, which explains why a general-purpose notary does not qualify on those forms.

Where do you find one? The forms that accept both roles say “Authorized certifying officers are available at financial institutions, including credit unions, in the United States.” FS Form 5336 phrases it slightly differently: “available at most financial institutions, including credit unions.” The practical reading is that you start with the bank or credit union where you hold an account, ask whether the branch has someone who can certify a Treasury securities form, and expect that some branches will say yes and some will send you elsewhere.

Which stamps count

The forms also list the seals and stamps that make a certification valid, and the lists are close to identical, with one telling difference. FS Forms 5444, 1522, 4000 and 5336 name the seal or stamp of a notary as the first acceptable example; on FS Form 5336, that notary seal counts “for a transaction that involves only paper savings bonds.” FS Forms 5511, 5512 and 5446 omit the notary entry altogether and begin with the financial institution’s official seal or stamp.

Beyond the notary, every one of the forms lists the same two other families of acceptable stamp. The first is “a financial institution’s official seal or stamp,” which the forms spell out as a Signature Guaranteed seal or stamp; an Endorsement Guaranteed seal or stamp; a Corporate seal or stamp (a corporate resolution is not required); or an issuing or paying agent seal or stamp that includes name, location, and a four-digit identification number or a nine-digit routing number. The second is “the seal or stamp of Treasury-recognized Signature Guarantee Programs or other Treasury-approved Medallion Programs.” The sample on the forms for a brokerage shows a “MEDALLION GUARANTEED” stamp alongside the Securities Transfer Agents Medallion Program mark, which tells you that a Medallion signature guarantee from a brokerage is on the approved list.

One more rule is easy to overlook. FS Form 5444 states flatly: “A Bank Address Stamp is NOT an acceptable form of certification for this document.” A stamp that merely prints the branch’s address is not the same thing as a Signature Guaranteed or Corporate stamp, even though both come from the same bank. Look at the stamp before you leave the counter.

The instructions printed for the officer

At the bottom of every form sits a block addressed to whoever certifies. Read it yourself before the appointment, because it is the part of the form most easily filled in wrong or left half-done. The block says that the names of the persons who appeared and the date of appearance “MUST be completed,” and that “Person(s) must sign in your presence.” On FS Forms 5511, 5446, 1522, 4000 and 5336 it adds that if a Medallion stamp is used, an original signature is required; FS Form 5444 states simply “Original signature is required.” This is why you should arrive at the bank with the form filled in everywhere except the signature line, and why you should not sign it at your kitchen table the night before.

How to decide before you drive to the bank

Start with the form number. If it is 5511, 5512 or 5446, go to a bank or credit union and ask for a certifying officer. There is nothing a notary can do for you on those, and the form says as much in the signature section. If it is 5444 or 4000, you have a choice, and a notary is a legitimate one. If it is 1522, compute the current redemption value first. The form tells you to use the Savings Bond Calculator at TreasuryDirect.gov for Series EE, Series E, Series I bonds and savings notes. With bonds worth $850, for example, you are under the $1,000 line and can skip certification entirely by enclosing a copy of your ID; at $1,001 you need a notary or certifying officer.

If it is 5336, ask yourself one question: is every security in the estate a paper savings bond? If yes, a notary can do it. If a single electronic or marketable security is in the mix, you need a certifying officer. The form insists that all of the decedent’s securities go in one transaction, so there is no splitting the paperwork to get a notary on the easy half.

After that, the logistics are the same everywhere. The forms that list a mailing address send you to Treasury Retail Securities Services, PO Box 9150, Minneapolis, MN 55480-9150. Several of them add a sentence worth remembering: “Legal evidence or documentation you submit cannot be returned.” Send copies of what you can, and keep your own file.

What each form is really for

It helps to see the forms as a family. The transfer request in FS Form 5511 is how Treasuries leave TreasuryDirect for a broker, which matters if you bought through the process described in our guide on how to buy on TreasuryDirect. Our walkthrough of FS Form 1522 covers cashing paper bonds, a task that often comes up when someone finds old bonds in a drawer and wonders whether to cash them now or later; the timing question has its own treatment in when to redeem an I bond, and the broader comparison of the two main bond types is in Series I versus Series EE. FS Form 5444 is the authorization form for a TreasuryDirect account, and FS Form 5336 handles a deceased owner’s holdings when no court is involved. If you want to see where all of this fits among the other places to park cash, the savings hub maps the whole landscape.

A word on the unwritten parts

Nothing in these forms tells you how long processing takes, what a particular bank charges for a certification, or whether your own branch has an officer on duty on the day you visit. Those are questions for the bank and for Treasury Retail Securities Services, which lists a toll-free number of 844-284-2676 on FS Forms 1522 and 4000. The honest planning assumption is that a paper process with a bank appointment at one end and a postal mailing at the other is measured in weeks, and that a wrong stamp restarts the clock.

Sources

• FS Form 5511, TreasuryDirect Transfer Request (rev. March 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/pdf5511.pdf
• FS Form 5512, TreasuryDirect Redemption and/or Bank Change Request (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sec5512.pdf
• FS Form 5446, TreasuryDirect Offline Transaction Request (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav5446.pdf
• FS Form 5444, TreasuryDirect Account Authorization (rev. March 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf
• FS Form 1522, Special Form of Request for Payment of United States Savings and Retirement Securities (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav1522.pdf
• FS Form 4000, Request To Reissue United States Savings Bonds (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav4000.pdf
• FS Form 5336, Disposition of Treasury Securities Belonging to a Decedent’s Estate Being Settled Without Administration (rev. April 2026): https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav5336.pdf