NC Vital Records: Order a Certificate
General Issuance Certificate Ordering Options
Preliminary Ordering Questions
To help route you to the correct information and resources for the certificate service you need to request, please step through our preliminary ordering questions.
Place an Order: Overview
What Records Are Available through NCOVR?
- Birth Certificates: 1913-Present
- Death Certificates: 1930-Present
- Marriage Certificates: 1962-Present
- Divorce Certificates: 1958-Present
- Fetal Death Reports: 2001-Present
- Birth, death and marriage certificates may also be obtained at the Register of Deeds office in the county where the event took place.
- Divorce certificates may also be obtained from the clerk of court in the county where the divorce is filed.
- Do you need an older record?
What about non-standard orders? How do I amend a certificate or change a record?
- For most amendments or corrections (e.g., changes to birth or death certificates, legitimations, name changes), see the Change a Record page.
- For Affidavits of Parentage (AOPs), Court Orders for Paternity, and Disestablishment of Paternity, see the Paternity Establishment page.
- For certificates after adoption, see the Adoptions page. NC Vital Records is the only place to get a birth certificate for an adopted child.
- Note: The NC Secretary of State's office provides apostille services in North Carolina. Also see our FAQs for more details.
Payment Processing and Order Delivery
- Please note for orders placed through our office there is a $24 search (and one copy) fee that is nonrefundable, even if a record is not found, which means we must process payments before completing the order.
- Due to order volume and system migrations from paper to electronic, there will usually be a time gap between your payment being processed and orders being completed and delivered to you, especially if there are issues to be researched and addressed with orders (e.g., amendments to certificates).
- If a record is not found during the search, then we will be in touch.
- Payments above the $24 search fee can be refunded when a record is not found and an order is cancelled.
- See our current processing times for certificate and order types.
- Current processing times for regular (non-expedited), expedited, and VitalChek orders are available on our General Issuance Processing Dates page.
- Birth, death and marriage certificates may also be obtained at the Register of Deeds (ROD) office in the county where the event took place.
- Divorce certificates may also be obtained from the clerk of court in the county where the divorce is filed.
Information Required for Each Document
Birth Certificate | Death Certificate | Marriage Record | Divorce Record | Fetal Death Report | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | Name on certificate | Name on certificate | Names of applicants | Names of spouses | Name on report, if listed |
Additional Names | Both parents’ full names | Both parents' full names | |||
Date | Date of birth | Date of death | Date of marriage | Date of divorce | Date of delivery |
Place | Place of birth (city or county in N.C.) | Place of death (city or county in N.C.) | Place where license was issued (city or county in N.C. ) | Place of divorce (city or county in N.C.) | Place of delivery (city or county in N.C.) |
Requestor’s relationship to the person(s) named on the document | Required for a certified copy. | Required for a certified copy. | Required for a certified copy. | Required for a certified copy. | Required for a certified copy. |
Applicable fees vary depending on a number of factors regarding requested services and shipping. Please see the fees page for a detailed fees table.
If you have questions, please see the FAQs page. If your question is not answered there, please contact us.
- Birth, death and marriage certificates may also be obtained at the Register of Deeds office in the county where the event took place.
- Divorce certificates may also be obtained from the clerk of court in the county where the divorce is filed.
- The only authorized vendor for state-issued, certified North Carolina birth certificates is VitalChek.
- Please be aware that NC Vital Records is the only place to get a birth certificate for an adopted child.
Last Modified: March 15, 2024