Stamp or seal? What each profession actually calls it
3 September 2026 ยท Estamplab
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Open the stamp maker and start from any of these
Ask a land surveyor for a stamp and you will be corrected. Ask a doctor for a seal and you will get a blank look. The two words describe the same physical object often enough that people treat them as synonyms, and every trade that actually presses one has settled on a single word.
Open the stamp maker and start from any of these
The short version
Seal where the mark carries personal or institutional authority: licensed professions, notaries, universities, public offices, and a company executing a document.
Stamp where the mark records what happened to a document: received, paid, approved, checked, inspected, dispensed.
Chop where the market says chop, which is China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and much of South East Asia, for an object a British lawyer would call a company seal.
That covers most of it. The rest is the exceptions, and the exceptions are the interesting part.
Trade by trade
Land surveyor: seal. The plat is sealed, the certification block says seal, and the profession does not use the other word. See land surveyor seals.
Professional engineer: seal. A PE seals a drawing. "PE stamp" is what people type into a search box and not what the board calls it. See engineer and architect seals.
Architect: seal. Same convention, different wording inside the mark.
Notary: seal, mostly. In most US states the commission uses the word seal even where the physical article is an inked rubber stamp, and several states specify the shape. A few jurisdictions do say notary stamp. See the notary stamp and seal guide.
Lawyer, advocate, solicitor: stamp. The mark identifies the practice on correspondence and filings, and the profession says stamp. See digital stamps for lawyers.
Doctor, dentist, pharmacist, vet: stamp. Medicine says stamp for everything, including the round ones. "Physician seal" turns up on certificates in a few markets and nowhere else. See doctor and medical stamps.
Accountant, auditor: both, and it splits by document. The firm identity mark is a stamp; the mark on an audit opinion or a certified set of accounts is usually called a seal.
Bank: stamp, all of it. Branch stamps, teller stamps, endorsements. Nobody in banking says seal. See bank stamps and endorsements.
School: stamp. University: seal. The line falls on the document. A letter or a report card gets a stamp; a degree, a transcript or a testimonial gets a seal. See school and principal stamps.
Public office: seal for the office, stamp for the counter. The seal identifies the authority; the counter mark records that your document arrived. See seals for civil servants.
Manufacturing and QC: stamp. Inspection stamps, quality control stamps, goods received. See inspection stamps.
Company: both, and they are different objects. The everyday identity mark on invoices and letters is the company stamp. The formal instrument used to execute documents, conventionally round, is the company seal or common seal. See is a company seal still required.
Chop, and why it is not a translation
Chop is not a quaint word for seal. In China, Hong Kong and much of the region the company chop is how a company signs: a contract carrying the chop binds the company, and a contract without it can look unsigned regardless of who put their name on it. The chop is registered, controlled, and often kept by a specific person for that reason.
So "company seal" and "company chop" describe the same round red object and carry very different weight depending on which side of the world the document is going to. That is the practical reason the difference is worth knowing, rather than a matter of vocabulary. See the company chop guide.
Does using the wrong word cost anything
Two places it does.
Inside the mark. A mark reading SURVEYOR STAMP sitting in a certification block that says the plat is sealed reads as though somebody outside the profession made it, which is not the impression a professional mark exists to give.
When you ask for one. A stamp supplier will understand either word. A licensing board, a registry or an embassy will not necessarily, and their instructions use one word deliberately. Read the instruction and match it.
Everywhere else, both words get typed and both find the right page.
Read more: Seal stamp, stamp seal, and which one you actually want
The honest limits
Estamplab is a design tool. This page describes common commercial practice rather than giving legal or medical advice, and the conventions above are conventions rather than rules: where a licensing board, a council or a receiving authority publishes wording, that wording is the answer and you should check the requirement with them.
Only produce a mark you or your organisation are entitled to use. A professional seal belongs to the person the licence was issued to, and applying somebody else's is forgery rather than a naming question.
The list, in full
Every type we make is set out under the trade that presses it, with the word that trade uses, on the stamp and seal directory. The template gallery is the same library sorted by design rather than by profession.
Every kind of stamp and seal
- Notary stamps and seals
- Rubber stamps
- Rubber stamp maker
- Self-inking stamps
- Office stamps
- Official stamps
- Company seals
- Corporate stamps and seals
- Company chops
- Seals for civil servants
- Justice and court stamps
- Legal and advocate stamps
- Certified true copy stamps
- Medical stamps
- Pharmacy stamps
- Veterinary stamps
- Engineer and architect seals
- Land surveyor seals
- Bank stamps
- School and principal stamps
- Teacher and marking stamps
- University and college seals
- Library stamps
- Inspection stamps
- Courier and logistics stamps
- Construction and site stamps
- Real estate stamps
- Hotel and restaurant stamps
- Church and charity seals
- Tender and bid stamps
- HR and payroll stamps
- Received and paid stamps
- Confidential and draft stamps
- Signature stamps
- Date stamps
- Custom band stamps
- Numbering stamps
- Address stamps
- Monogram stamps
- Wedding stamps
- Gift and craft stamps
- Art and logo stamps
- Wax and foil seals