The Department of Health's Division of Vital Records issues Pennsylvania birth certificates, and its birth certificate page describes the document as an official legal record printed on specialised security paper with a raised seal, used to prove identity for a passport, employment, a driving licence, a social security card and school enrolment. The office issues certificates only for births that occurred in Pennsylvania since 1906, the year the statewide vital records programme began. Where a record cannot be identified or found on the information provided, the applicant receives a certified No Record Certification of Birth instead, which is why the department asks for as much detail as possible.
Three routes are available: the state's only authorised online vendor, a walk in at one of the vital records public offices, and a postal application to the Birth Certificate Processing Unit in New Castle. The department explains how online ordering actually works, since it processes every order itself and online providers merely collect them: only its authorised vendor submits orders directly, while all other online providers convert an order into a paper application, so using one causes delay. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Pennsylvania county pages.
- Twenty dollars each: the fee for every certificate regardless of how many are ordered, with ten dollars more for an online order.
- Sixteen, or eighteen online: applicants must be sixteen for in person and postal applications and eighteen to order online.
- A very wide family list: spouses, step parents, half siblings, step children, great grandparents and great grandchildren all qualify.
- A hundred and five years: the original Report of Live Birth stays closed until then, when it passes to the State Archives.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Pennsylvania's own systems: the Pennsylvania Department of Health birth certificates page, the department's vital records pages, the federal where to write for vital records page for Pennsylvania, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who may apply, and at what age
Pennsylvania publishes one of the longest eligibility lists in the country. A certificate may be issued to the person named on it, a spouse, a parent or step parent, a brother, sister, half brother or half sister, a son or daughter, a step son or step daughter, a grandparent or great grandparent, a grandchild or great grandchild, a power of attorney, or an attorney or legal representative of the person named on the certificate.
Where the person named on the certificate has died, a family member outside that list must also submit a copy of the death certificate to become eligible. Age matters as well as relationship: an eligible applicant must be at least sixteen to apply in person or by post, and at least eighteen to order online, because of the payment and identity checks the online system uses. Every application must be completed in full, signed, and accompanied by valid identification from the department's published list.
Twenty dollars, whatever the quantity
The fee is twenty dollars for each birth certificate ordered, and the department states that it is twenty dollars each regardless of the quantity ordered, so there is no discount for buying several at once. The figure is set under the Administrative Code of 1929, the payment is deposited when the application is received, and it is not refundable, which means a search that produces a No Record Certification of Birth still costs the full price.
Online orders carry an additional non refundable ten dollar service fee. Payment is by credit card online or at a public office, and by cheque or money order payable to Vital Records when applying by post, with cash never accepted.
The armed forces waiver
Act 137 of 2024 waives the certificate fee for service members and their families, on conditions the department sets out carefully. The applicant or their spouse, including a widow or widower who has not remarried, must be in active service or have been discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, and documentation supporting that status must be provided. Waivers are limited to ten copies per applicant per calendar year.
The waiver covers only the applicant's own birth certificate, their spouse's, or that of a dependent child, with supporting documentation required for a dependent child over eighteen. And it covers the certificate fee alone: the ten dollar online service fee is still payable. Other fee waived paper applications are published in the department's forms section for particular categories of applicant.
How long it takes, and how to go faster
The department publishes current processing times for applications placed online, by telephone and by post, rather than fixing a statutory period. Those times run from the date the application is received and do not include delivery, and they lengthen where the department has to resolve problems with an application, where the request is genealogical, or where it involves a subpoena, a court order or a power of attorney, as well as where changes to the record are requested at the same time.
The department's own advice to anyone who needs a certificate quickly is to apply in person at one of its six vital records branch offices, or to order online, where collection at a vital records office is offered as a delivery option alongside first class post.
The Report of Live Birth, and the hundred and five year wall
The document often called the original birth certificate is the Report of Live Birth, the original report filed with the department when a birth is registered. Under the Vital Statistics Law of 1953 it is not classified as a public document until a hundred and five years after the individual's birth, which also places it outside the reach of Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law, so a records request cannot be used to obtain one early.
Once a report reaches that age it matures into a public record and becomes available through the Pennsylvania State Archives rather than the Division of Vital Records. For genealogists, that means the dividing line between the two offices moves forward a year at a time, and anything more recent than the threshold has to come through the certificate process and its eligibility list.
Ordering online without being overcharged
Pennsylvania is unusually direct about commercial sites. Its page names its single authorised vendor, explains that every other online provider converts an order into a paper application and causes delay, and tells anyone who has had a problem with another vendor to take it up with that vendor directly. If a vendor has given inaccurate information about the department's services or fees, the page points to the consumer protection office in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, or to the consumer protection agency in the state where the applicant lives or where the vendor is based.
For a requester the practical rule is simple: the only prices that should appear are twenty dollars for the certificate and, online, the ten dollar service fee.
Questions about Pennsylvania birth certificates
Related Pennsylvania records
Pennsylvania's other records guides on this site are the Pennsylvania public records law guide for the Right to Know Law, the Pennsylvania death records guide for the same division, the Pennsylvania court records guide for the unified judicial system, and the Pennsylvania county pages for every county office.