California keeps a single birth record and sells two different versions of it. The state's application for a certified copy of a birth record, form VS 111 in its January 2026 revision, explains both. An authorized copy can be used to establish the identity of the person named on the certificate, and is available only to the people the Health and Safety Code lists. A certified informational copy is available to any interested person, needs no oath, and carries a legend printed across its face reading that it is informational and not a valid document to establish identity. Both are certified copies of the original document on file, and depending on the year of the event some informational copies have signatures and social security numbers concealed.
Two offices can sell either version. The Department of Public Health Vital Records issues records for the whole state, while a county can issue records only for births that happened in that county, which makes the county the faster route when the birth was local. Records are available twenty one days after the date of birth. The state office has held vital event records since July 1905, and for anything earlier the county recorder where the event occurred is the only source. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the California county pages.
- Thirty one dollars a copy: the state fee under the January 2026 form, by check or money order to CDPH Vital Records, never cash.
- The oath decides the copy: an authorized copy needs a notarized sworn statement; without it the request is not accepted for processing.
- Twenty one days: a birth record becomes available three weeks after the birth, from the state or from the county of birth.
- July 1905 at the state: earlier records exist only with the county recorder for the county where the birth happened.
Written by SearchSystems.net from California's own systems: the California Department of Public Health application for a certified copy of a birth record, VS 111, the department's page on obtaining certified copies of birth records, the department's forms page for birth, death and marriage certificates, the federal where to write for vital records page for California, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who may have an authorized copy
The list comes from Health and Safety Code section 103526 and is reproduced on the application itself. It covers the registrant, meaning the person the certificate is about, and a parent, legal guardian, child, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse or domestic partner of the registrant, with a legal guardian required to provide documentation. It covers a party entitled to receive the record as a result of a court order, and an attorney or licensed adoption agency seeking the record to comply with the Family Code provisions on parentage and custody, in which case a copy of the court order goes with the application.
It covers a member of a law enforcement agency, or a representative of another governmental agency conducting official business, with companies acting for a government agency required to supply that agency's authorisation. It covers any person or agency empowered by statute or appointed by a court to act on behalf of the registrant or the registrant's estate, who must enclose the power of attorney or the documentation identifying them as executor.
And it covers an attorney representing the registrant or the estate. Everyone else, including a researcher, a journalist or a more distant relative, may buy a certified informational copy instead.
The sworn statement, and the ways it goes wrong
An authorized copy requires a notarized sworn statement, on page five of the application, declaring under penalty of perjury that the applicant is authorized by law to receive the copy. The department is blunt about what happens otherwise: if a certified copy is requested and the notarized sworn statement is not included, the request will not be accepted for processing, and it comes back. Three details save time. Only one sworn statement is needed where several records are requested at the same time, provided it names each person whose record is being requested and the applicant's relationship to each of them.
Law enforcement and governmental agencies are exempt from the notary requirement but must still complete the top portion of the sworn statement page. And a statement notarized by a foreign notary needs an apostille attached, unless the notarization was taken by a United States ambassador, minister, consul, vice consul or consular agent, or by a judge of a court of record having a seal in a foreign country.
What a request costs and contains
The fee is thirty one dollars for each copy requested, paid by check or money order in United States dollars made payable to CDPH Vital Records, with no cash accepted. A separate application is needed for each birth record requested, and the number of copies is stated on the application's checklist. Part 2 asks for the record details, the first, middle and last name on the record, the California city and the county of birth, the date of birth or an approximate date, and both parents' first names and last names at birth, and the instruction is to give as much information as possible to help identify the record.
Part 3 asks for the applicant's name, mailing address, telephone number, email address and the reason for the request, with an agency section for official users. The completed application, the fee and the notarized sworn statement where one is required are posted to Vital Records at MS 5103, P.O. Box 997410, Sacramento, and the customer service unit takes questions on weekdays.
When the record cannot be found, or is being changed
Two outcomes other than a certificate are worth knowing about before applying. Where the department cannot locate the record on the information provided, the law authorises it to keep the search fee, and it issues a Certificate of No Public Record instead, so an inaccurate date or a misspelled surname costs the full price. Where an amendment is in progress, to correct an error or add information to the original document, copies of the amended certificate may be requested at the same time the amendment is submitted, and the applicant receives a certified copy once the amendment is complete.
Asking before the amendment finishes produces either a copy of the unamended record or a Certificate of No Public Record if the record cannot be located, so the department's advice where the amended version is the one wanted is to wait until the amendment is done.
Adoption, sealed records and what the certificate looks like
An adopted person requesting their current record enters the adopted name on the application in the ordinary way. The original birth certificate is sealed, and obtaining it requires a court order releasing the sealed record, with the application's sealed record box ticked and the order enclosed. On appearance, one change often surprises people checking an older document against a new one: since November 1, 2013 the department no longer embosses certified copies, so the absence of a raised seal on a recent California certificate is not a sign that the copy is unofficial.
Timing, the county alternative and the rest of the price list
Processing times at the state office vary and are published on the department's website rather than fixed by rule, and the application itself says that an applicant who needs a copy sooner should contact the county recorder for the county where the event occurred, using the list of county recorders enclosed with the form. That is the practical route for anyone who needs a certificate quickly for a passport, a driving licence or a school enrolment, since a county office can often produce a record over the counter.
The state's other vital record fees sit alongside the birth fee: twenty four dollars for a death record, seventeen dollars for a state marriage certificate, and fourteen dollars for a divorce certificate of record, which is only a record of the filing rather than a copy of the decree. For a divorce decree, or for marriage records outside the years the state holds, the county superior court or the county recorder is again the place to ask.
Questions about California birth certificates
Related California records
California's other records guides on this site are the California public records law guide for the Public Records Act, the California death records guide for the same vital records office, the California court records guide for the superior courts, and the California county pages for every county office.