The Washington Department of Health holds birth records from July 1, 1907 to the present for events that happened in the state, and its birth record page lists three products rather than one: a birth certificate, an heirloom birth certificate and a noncertified informational copy of a birth record. The first two are certified documents for legal purposes and are restricted. The third is open to anyone, which is unusual, and it carries the same information as the certificate.
The reason the state gives for restricting certificates is worth quoting, because it explains the whole structure: certificates of birth and death records are base documents that prove identity and provide access to important services and accounts, so limiting access to them protects personal information and prevents fraudulent use. Informational copies remain available because the underlying facts are not secret; what is protected is the document that can be used as proof. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Washington county pages.
- Twenty five dollars either way: a certified birth certificate and a noncertified informational copy cost the same, and fees are nonrefundable.
- Anyone can buy the informational copy: no proof of identity and no qualifying relationship is needed for it.
- A long qualified list: from self and spouse through stepchildren, great grandparents and great grandchildren to courts and government agencies.
- Free if you are homeless: birth certificates carry no fee for people experiencing homelessness who were born in Washington.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Washington's own systems: the Washington Department of Health page on ordering a birth record, the department's questions and answers on certificates and informational copies, the department's page on ordering a vital record, the department's page on records issued without a fee, the department's vital records forms, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Who counts as a qualified applicant
For a birth certificate or an heirloom certificate the department requires both identity documents and documents proving a qualifying relationship. The qualified list is long: self, spouse or domestic partner, child, parent, stepparent, stepchild, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, great grandparent, great grandchild, legal guardian, legal representative, authorized representative, government agency and courts. Proving the relationship can take more than one document, and the department warns that an applicant may need to buy certificates from other states to link themselves to the Washington record, for example where a surname changed on marriage in another state.
Someone who cannot prove qualification has three alternatives: buy a noncertified informational copy, become an authorized representative through a notarized form signed by a qualified applicant or an agent named in a power of attorney, or request historical records directly from the State Archives.
The informational copy, and when it will do
A noncertified informational copy is not printed on certified paper with security features and cannot be used for legal purposes, and it carries a watermark saying exactly that. What it does carry is the same information as a birth certificate, which makes it suitable for genealogy, for family records and for any purpose where the facts rather than the proof are what is needed. Anyone may request one, with no proof of identity and no proof of relationship.
The department's own caution is the right one: check with the agency or organisation requesting the record before ordering an informational copy, because an office expecting a certified document will not accept it. For death records the informational copy matches the certified short form and leaves out the cause and manner of death and the decedent's social security number, and informational copies are not available at all for long form death, fetal death, marriage or divorce records.
What it costs, and when it costs nothing
Fees start at twenty five dollars for each certified or noncertified informational copy, are nonrefundable, and may be increased by the ordering or shipping method chosen. Two exceptions change that figure. The heirloom birth certificate costs fifty dollars, of which twenty five dollars is tax deductible, with more than half the cost benefiting the Children's Trust Fund of Washington; the Governor signs each one individually, which is why the department warns it can take eight to ten weeks to arrive.
And birth certificates are issued without any fee to people experiencing homelessness who were born in Washington state, one of several circumstances the department lists in which no fee applies.
Where the old records go
Washington moves its historical vital records out of the health department on a timetable: a hundred years for births and fetal deaths, and twenty five years for deaths, marriages and divorces, after which the records are available at the State Archives. That has two consequences. A genealogist working on anything older than those thresholds should go straight to the Archives rather than paying the department's search fee. And an applicant who cannot prove a qualifying relationship for an older record may find the Archives copy answers the question anyway, since archive records are open rather than restricted.
What new parents need to know
The department addresses one misunderstanding directly. New parents complete a Washington State Birth Filing Form at the hospital or birth centre after delivery, and that form registers the birth; it is not an application for a certificate. The first birth certificate issued for a birth is not free, hospitals and birth centres cannot order one on a family's behalf, and the form the hospital hands over is usually the local county health department's order form, which carries a fee.
A family that assumes a certificate will arrive by post after the birth will still be waiting months later, which matters where the certificate is needed to add the child to insurance or to claim benefits.
Ordering, and the non binary option
Orders may be placed with the state office or through county vital records offices, with the department publishing the forms and the information every application must carry, including the city or county of birth. Along with the current fee structure, Washington added a non binary sex designation option, shown as an X, to its vital records, so a certificate can be issued with that designation and an existing record can be amended to it.
For anyone unsure which product to buy, the test is simple: if the document has to prove who someone is, it must be the certified birth certificate, and the qualified applicant rules apply; if it only has to show what the record says, the informational copy costs the same and is open to anyone.
Questions about Washington birth certificates
Related Washington records
Washington's other records guides on this site are the Washington public records law guide for the Public Records Act, the Washington death records guide for the same office, the Washington court records guide for the courts' search service, and the Washington county pages for every county office.