The Office of Vital Records in the Vermont Department of Health issues copies of records for births, deaths, marriages and divorces that took place in Vermont, holding birth and death records from January 1909 to the present. Its ordering page does something unusual: it tells Vermonters not to use it. If you are in Vermont, the department says, the fastest and cheapest way to get a copy of a vital record is to order it directly from your Town or City Clerk, who can issue both noncertified and certified copies.
Two documents are on offer at very different prices. A certified copy is printed on state engraved security paper with a raised seal and costs ten dollars, with a two dollar processing fee added when it is ordered online. A noncertified copy is printed on plain white paper with a noncertified copy watermark and is available at no charge. Only family members, legal guardians, certain court appointed parties or their legal representatives may apply for a certified birth certificate, and valid identification must be shown. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Vermont county pages.
- Ten dollars, or nothing: a certified copy on engraved security paper costs ten dollars, a watermarked noncertified copy is free.
- The town clerk first: the department calls the Town or City Clerk the fastest and cheapest route for anyone in Vermont.
- Records from January 1909: earlier births may still be held by the town where they were filed.
- Adoptees since July 2023: an adoptee may request a certified copy of their original Vermont birth certificate.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Vermont's own systems: the Vermont Department of Health page on ordering vital records, the department vital records pages, the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration page on certified vital records, the state vital records ordering service, the federal guidance on where to write for Vermont vital records, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The free copy, and what it is good for
A noncertified copy carries the same facts as the certified one, on plain white paper with a watermark saying what it is, and the department charges nothing for it. The request does not even need a form: an email to the vital records address naming the type of event, the names of the individuals on the certificate and the date of the event is enough, and the route covers births and deaths from 1909 to the present, marriages and divorces from 2024 onwards and civil union dissolutions of all years.
What the free copy will not do is prove identity, since no agency will accept a watermarked plain paper document in place of a certified one. For checking a date, a spelling or a parent name before ordering the real thing, or for family history, it answers the question at no cost.
Why the town clerk comes first
Vermont keeps its records in two places at once, and the local copy is usually the quicker one. A Town or City Clerk can issue both noncertified and certified copies of any birth or death certificate from January 1, 1909 to the present, of birth or death certificates from 1908 and earlier where they were filed in that office, and of marriage and civil union certificates on file there. That last point matters for a pre 1909 birth, which the state office does not hold at all: the town where the event was recorded may still have it.
The department publishes a directory of clerks, and its advice to use the online service is aimed at people outside Vermont or those not in a rush.
What the archives can issue
The Vermont State Archives and Records Administration acts as an issuing agent for the Department of Health, and its remit is narrower than many researchers expect. It can provide certified copies of Vermont marriage, civil union and divorce records from 2013 and earlier, at ten dollars for each certification, with an authentication for foreign use such as an apostille costing a further ten dollars. Requests can be made through the state vital records request service online, or by post on the archives own form for marriages, civil unions and divorces.
The archives also notes that most town clerks are issuing agents too, and points anyone unsure about which records come from where to the State Registrar or the health department.
Correcting a birth certificate, and the six month line
Vermont sets a deadline that parents should know about from the first week. A completion or change to the child name within six months of the date of birth requires the signature of both parents where two parents are listed on the certificate. After six months, the same change requires a certified copy of a court order, which turns an administrative correction into a legal one. Adding a second parent to the certificate requires either a certified copy of a court order adjudicating parentage, or a completed voluntary acknowledgement of parentage form with a denial of parentage form where one applies.
Questions about establishing legal parentage go to the Department of Children and Families rather than to vital records, and a change of gender marker is made on an affidavit of gender identity.
The same six months for deaths and marriages
The six month pattern runs through the other records too, with different people holding the pen. A death certificate may be corrected within six months from the date of death, or amended after six months, on an application submitted by the certifying licensed health care professional, the medical examiner, the hospital, the nursing home or the funeral director, rather than by the family directly. A marriage certificate may be corrected within six months from the date of marriage by application to the Town or City Clerk who issued it, and after six months an amendment requires a court order.
In each case the early window is the cheap one, which is an argument for reading a new certificate carefully as soon as it arrives.
Births that were never registered, and adoptees
A delayed birth certificate may be issued for a person born in Vermont for whom no birth certificate was filed during the first year following the birth. The person themselves, a parent or a guardian submits the application for a delayed certificate of birth together with a statement of the information to appear on it, and supporting documents are required to establish the facts. Separately, a change in the law took effect on July 1, 2023: adoptees may request a certified copy of their original Vermont birth certificate from the Department of Health, which the department lists among its ordinary services with its own page rather than as a court application.
Fourteen languages of forms
Vermont publishes its vital records forms in an unusually wide set of languages. The certified copy of a birth or death certificate application and its supplemental instructions, the application to correct or amend a birth certificate, the delayed certificate of birth instructions, the denial of parentage, the gender identity affidavit, the marriage licence application and the consent to parentage from assisted reproduction appear in Arabic, Bosnian, Burmese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Dari, French, Hindi, Kirundi, Nepali, Pashto, Spanish, Swahili and, for most of them, Vietnamese.
The list of forms also includes a homeless status affidavit, a marriage checklist for officiants, and a rescission or removal of a voluntary acknowledgement or denial of parentage, so the paperwork for the unusual situations is published rather than requested by telephone.
Questions about Vermont birth certificates
Related Vermont records
Vermont's other records guides on this site are the Vermont public records law guide for the Public Records Act, the Vermont death records guide for the same office, the Vermont court records guide for the judiciary case access, and the Vermont county pages for every county office.