The Office of Vital Records sits in the Department of Public Health and Human Services and takes postal applications at a box in Helena. Its own notice says the office is closed to the public for walk in services, so the counter work has moved outward: a birth or death certificate may be bought at any local County Clerk and Recorder office in Montana, regardless of which Montana county the event occurred in. For most people that makes the nearest courthouse the quickest route, with a current valid photo identification and an application completed on arrival.
The price list is the shortest in the country. The fee schedule, effective September 21, 2024, sets a certified birth certificate at sixteen dollars, and the office answers the question on its own page in one line: all certificates cost sixteen dollars, including birth and death certificates, certified and informational copies, and abstract and long form versions. Every fee on the schedule is marked non refundable. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Montana county pages.
- Sixteen dollars, whatever it is: certified or informational, birth or death, abstract or long form, with no bulk rate and no refunds.
- Any county counter: a certificate may be bought at any Clerk and Recorder office in Montana, whatever county the birth was in.
- Long form in two places only: the Helena office or the Clerk and Recorder of the county where the birth occurred.
- Open at thirty years: an informational copy of a birth that occurred thirty or more years ago may be issued to anyone.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Montana's own systems: the Montana Office of Vital Records fee schedule, the office page on birth and death certificates, the Office of Vital Records home page, the office page on corrections to certificates, the federal guidance on where to write for Montana vital records, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The long form, and why the county matters
Montana issues an abstract version of the birth certificate as its default. A long form carries the fuller record, including the time of birth and the hospital, and it is the version usually asked for in dual citizenship applications and tribal enrolment. Two things follow. First, a requester has to say that a long form is needed, because otherwise the abstract is issued. Second, the any county rule does not apply to it: a long form must be requested from the state office in Helena or from the Clerk and Recorder in the specific county where the birth occurred.
Anyone travelling to a courthouse for a long form should therefore check the county of birth first, since the convenience that applies to an ordinary copy disappears here. The price is the same either way, at sixteen dollars.
Informational copies, and the thirty year line
An informational copy is priced identically to a certified one, which is unusual, and the schedule attaches a note to it that matters for family history: an informational birth certificate may be issued to anyone where the birth being requested occurred thirty or more years ago. That is a short waiting period by national standards, where a hundred years is common, and it means a Montana birth from 1996 or earlier can be bought by a researcher with no relationship to the registrant at all.
What it will not do is serve as proof of identity, because an informational copy is not a certified one, so the two documents answer different needs at the same price.
Searching when you are not sure
Where a requester cannot place the event, the schedule prices a search separately from a certificate: ten dollars for a record search within any period of five years or less, for a marriage, divorce, death or birth, with an additional dollar for each year searched beyond the first five. What comes back is not a certificate but a letter confirming or denying that a record was found, after which a certificate can be ordered in the ordinary way.
For a long run of uncertain years the arithmetic is gentle, since a twenty year search costs ten dollars plus fifteen, and the result is a definite answer rather than a repeated gamble on single year requests.
Identification, and three ways round not having it
A postal application needs either a copy of a valid identification or a notarised application, and the office asks for a photocopy of the front and back of a photo identification. Where an applicant has no current valid photo identification, the office sets out alternatives. The application can be notarised, affirming that the applicant is who they say they are. Or two alternative documents can be supplied, at least one of them carrying a signature, with the office giving its own examples: a signed social security card, a signed bank or payment card, a signed fishing licence, a signed traffic ticket or a military discharge form, alongside something like a vehicle registration or insurance document, a doctor or medical record, a utility bill showing the current address or a voter registration card.
And if neither is possible, an authorised family member, meaning a parent, grandparent, child or spouse, may request the certificate instead, on proof of the relationship such as copies of their own birth certificates or a marriage licence.
What the processing fees cover
Several services share a single figure of forty one dollars, which the schedule breaks into twenty five dollars to process and sixteen dollars for the resulting certified birth certificate, with each additional certificate at sixteen. They are an adoption or the rescission of one and name change processing, the opening of a sealed file, home birth certificate processing, and the delayed registration of a record. Corrections sit on a timer.
Processing the correction of an error costs nothing where the amendment is requested within one year from the date the vital record was filed, and forty one dollars where it is requested after that year. For a parent who spots a misspelling on a newborn certificate, that is a strong reason to deal with it quickly. Name changes, adoptions and corrections are all handled by appointment.
Apostilles, and the two separate payments
The office does not complete apostilles. What it will do is post the certificate to the Secretary of State once it has been issued, where the requester has said in advance that an apostille is needed. Three practical points come with that. The Secretary of State charges its own fee of ten dollars. The requester should contact that office beforehand so that it knows the certificate is coming. And the two payments must not be combined: a single cheque or money order covering both will not work, since the offices bank separately.
For anyone preparing documents for use abroad, that sequence adds a step and a second contact, and it is worth starting earlier than the certificate alone would need.
The consumer alert, and no free certificate for a newborn
Montana publishes a warning about the resellers. Some private companies, it says, charge high fees to help an applicant apply for certificates, and they are not affiliated with Montana Vital Records; the state names the two vendors it has contracted and approved and points anyone dissatisfied with an unauthorised company to the consumer protection office of the state justice department. The office also cannot take card payments over the telephone itself, which is why the approved vendors exist.
One more answer on the same page saves a wait: in Montana free certificates are not provided after a birth, so a new parent who has been waiting for a certificate to arrive in the post should order one through any of the routes above.
Questions about Montana birth certificates
Related Montana records
Montana's other records guides on this site are the Montana public records law guide for the right to know, the Montana death records guide for the same office, the Montana court records guide for the judiciary case search, and the Montana county pages for every county office.