The Office of Vital Statistics in the Division of Public Health issues Delaware birth certificates from three counters rather than one. The central office is in the Jesse Cooper Building at 417 Federal Street in Dover, with a New Castle County office at 258 Chapman Road in Newark and a Sussex County office at 546 South Bedford Street in Georgetown, all open on weekdays from eight in the morning until four except on holidays. The office page also encourages postal requests, and names two credit card services for ordering online, each charging its own additional fee.
A copy costs twenty five dollars, and the application makes the risk plain: if the record is not located, the fee will be retained for the search. Cheques and money orders are payable to the State of Delaware. The state office holds birth records from 1942 to the present, so an earlier birth is a question for the Delaware Public Archives rather than for the counter. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Delaware county pages.
- Twenty five dollars a copy: and the fee is kept for the search where the record cannot be located.
- Three counters: Dover, Newark and Georgetown, each open on weekdays from eight until four except holidays.
- State records from 1942: earlier births are held on microfilm by the Delaware Public Archives.
- Public at seventy two years: a Delaware birth record becomes a public record at that age, with marriages at fifty and deaths at forty.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Delaware's own systems: the Delaware Office of Vital Statistics pages, the application for a certified copy of a Delaware birth certificate, the adoptee birth certificate application, the Delaware Public Archives guide to vital statistics records, the federal guidance on where to write for Delaware vital records, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What the form asks, and what it warns
The application sets out the relationship options as tick boxes: myself, my child, my current husband or wife, my parent, another specified familial relationship, legal guardian, genealogy, and authorised agent, attorney or legal representative of one of those people. Each of the starred options needs proof of relationship, which the form gives as a birth or marriage certificate; a guardian needs the court order, and a genealogical request needs its own proof.
Three things must accompany the application when it is filed: the fee, a copy of the applicant official valid photo identification, which may be a driving licence, a state identification, a work identification or a passport, and a parent identification where the certificate is for a child. The form ends with a warning rather than a disclaimer: it is a felony violation of Delaware law, under section 3111 of title 16 of the code, to make a false statement on the application or to unlawfully obtain a certified copy of a birth certificate.
Requests from attorneys and agents
Delaware handles professional requests through a separate route. A legal request from an authorised representative must use the office legal template, be made on official letterhead and state the purpose of the request. Where the applicant is acting for a client other than the registrant, three further things are required: an explanation of how the vital record will be used, a demonstration of the client relationship to the registrant, which the office suggests documenting with birth or marriage certificates, a Register of Wills short certificate or a court order, and a statement of the law or regulations that make the applicant eligible to receive the record.
The application form carries a matching block asking for the client name, the client relationship to the registrant and the purpose, and the office notes that additional documentation may be requested.
The seventy two year rule
The division of labour between the health office and the archives is set by age. Delaware law has required the recording of births, deaths and marriages since 1913, and under state law a birth record becomes a public record once it reaches seventy two years of age, with marriage records becoming public at fifty years and death records at forty. The records that have crossed those lines are held on microfilm at the Delaware Public Archives, which is why the health office holds birth records only from 1942 onwards.
Before 1913 the duty fell elsewhere: each county Recorder of Deeds recorded the births, marriages and deaths of the state and furnished a copy of them to the Secretary of the State Board of Health every three months, with records obtained voluntarily remaining the responsibility of the Recorder.
Researching at the archives
The archives charges differ from the health office, and are lower for research than for certification. A postal request carries a minimum charge of ten dollars for up to ten pages, with five dollar increments for each further ten pages and no shipping and handling fee. On site, a photocopy of microfilm made on the self service reader printer costs fifty cents a page, and a manuscript copy made by staff as time permits costs the same.
A certified copy needed for legal reasons costs twenty five dollars, matching the health office price. Two rules shape a postal enquiry: requests must be limited to five specific pieces of information per letter, and while staff will do minimal searching of the available checklists and indices and give a price quote where references are found, most holdings are not indexed and can only be searched by patrons in person.
What an old Delaware record contains
The archives describes what the historic forms provided space for, while warning that they were not consistently completed. A birth record may contain the child name, race, sex, date and place of birth; the number of children in the family and which number this child is; the mother name, age, race, occupation and place of nativity; the father name, age, race, occupation and place of nativity; and the witnesses. That is a fuller set of facts than a modern certified copy gives a researcher, which is one reason the archives route matters for family history.
The archives also offers two pieces of practical advice: always check variant spellings, because names were often recorded phonetically, and cite each source as it is found, which adds authenticity and helps future retrieval.
Pens, and other research room rules
The archives is explicit about one restriction that catches first time visitors. Because ink may accidentally but permanently destroy a record, pens are prohibited in the facility, and researchers must use pencils for taking notes and recording references. Records are kept in a variety of formats and staff advise checking which format applies to each type of information, with microfilming used for preservation wherever possible and original manuscripts handled with care.
For anyone whose Delaware ancestor predates 1913, the archives also publishes a checklist of other sources to try, including index cards to vital statistics, family bible records, probate and orphans court records, census and cemetery records, tombstone inscriptions, military and court records, directories, newspapers, tax assessments, deed and land records and naturalisations.
Heirloom certificates and the pre birth service
Two extras sit alongside the plain certificate. The office began issuing heirloom birth certificates several years ago, printed on specially designed security papers, which gives a keepsake document produced by the same office as the legal one. And a sister company of one of the online ordering vendors runs a pre birth service that lets parents answer the post delivery hospital questions at their convenience rather than immediately after the birth, with an option to pre order birth certificates at the same time.
The office also publishes its own specialised forms: an adoptee birth certificate application, a same gender marriage certificate application, death certificate applications for the public and for funeral directors, a marriage certificate application, and a gender reassignment packet made up of the required documents list, a requester affidavit and a healthcare provider affidavit.
Questions about Delaware birth certificates
Related Delaware records
Delaware's other records guides on this site are the Delaware public records law guide for the Freedom of Information Act, the Delaware death records guide for the same office, the Delaware court records guide for the judiciary case search, and the Delaware county pages for every county office.