U.S. Vital Records Directory

Find the right office for any birth, death, or marriage certificate.

VitalTrace publishes the official request procedure, fees, and contact information for the vital records office in every U.S. county and state — sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau and the CDC’s national directory.

Browse all states & counties

3,235 counties · 57 states & territories · 3 certificate types

Birth certificates Death certificates Marriage certificates All states
3,235Counties & equivalents
57States & territories
9,774Indexed pages
2Federal source datasets

Three certificate types

What VitalTrace covers

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Birth certificates

Certified copies for passport, REAL ID, school enrollment, and Social Security applications. Eligibility and ID requirements per state.

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Death certificates

Certified copies for probate, life insurance, retirement-account closure, and title transfers. How many copies estates typically need.

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Marriage certificates

Certified marriage records for name changes, immigration filings, and joint accounts. Where the original license is filed in each state.

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All 57 jurisdictions

Browse by state

Each tile opens the state hub with its central vital records office, fees, and a directory of every county.

AK Alaska 30 counties AL Alabama 67 counties AR Arkansas 75 counties AS American Samoa 5 counties AZ Arizona 15 counties CA California 58 counties CO Colorado 64 counties CT Connecticut 8 counties DC District of Columbia 1 counties DE Delaware 3 counties FL Florida 67 counties GA Georgia 159 counties GU Guam 1 counties HI Hawaii 5 counties IA Iowa 99 counties ID Idaho 44 counties IL Illinois 102 counties IN Indiana 92 counties KS Kansas 105 counties KY Kentucky 120 counties LA Louisiana 64 counties MA Massachusetts 14 counties MD Maryland 24 counties ME Maine 16 counties MI Michigan 83 counties MN Minnesota 87 counties MO Missouri 115 counties MP Northern Mariana Islands 4 counties MS Mississippi 82 counties MT Montana 56 counties NC North Carolina 100 counties ND North Dakota 53 counties NE Nebraska 93 counties NH New Hampshire 10 counties NJ New Jersey 21 counties NM New Mexico 33 counties NV Nevada 17 counties NY New York 62 counties OH Ohio 88 counties OK Oklahoma 77 counties OR Oregon 36 counties PA Pennsylvania 67 counties PR Puerto Rico 78 counties RI Rhode Island 5 counties SC South Carolina 46 counties SD South Dakota 66 counties TN Tennessee 95 counties TX Texas 254 counties UM U.S. Minor Outlying Islands 1 counties UT Utah 29 counties VA Virginia 133 counties VI U.S. Virgin Islands 3 counties VT Vermont 14 counties WA Washington 39 counties WI Wisconsin 72 counties WV West Virginia 55 counties WY Wyoming 23 counties

How it works

How a U.S. vital records request actually works

Every U.S. state and most U.S. territories operate a centralized vital records office that registers births and deaths from the year the state began statewide registration — often early in the twentieth century. For events that occurred before the statewide cut-off date, or for marriage records in many states, the official custodian is the county clerk, probate court, or county recorder where the event was originally filed.

VitalTrace begins from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 county-equivalents file and joins it with the CDC’s “Where to Write for Vital Records” reference, which is the same directory federal agencies and embassies use when they need to confirm where a certificate must be ordered from. For each county we publish the addresses, current fees, telephone numbers, websites, and processing notes so the request you send out the door is the request the office will actually accept on the first try.

If you are ordering certificates to settle an estate, apply for a passport, change a name after a marriage, or pursue a genealogy line, start from the state page in the grid above, drill down to the relevant county, and pick the certificate type you need.

Read more about how VitalTrace is built →