The State Office of Vital Records in Atlanta registers every Georgia death and certifies copies from January 1919 onward, the year statewide registration began. The Department of Public Health death records page defines the certificate as the official recording of the cause, date and place of death signed by a physician, and offers three ways to order: online, in person or by mail. Every one of the 159 counties also has a vital records office that can issue Georgia death certificates, and in practice that is where the fastest service is, since the state warns that its own mail requests take eight to ten weeks.
What sets Georgia apart is the public copy. The department says members of the public may order the death record of anyone who died in Georgia, and that they receive plain paper copies with the Social Security number redacted. A certified copy, the kind banks, insurers, courts and pension funds accept, is reserved for a legal spouse, adult children, adult siblings, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, and people with what the state calls a tangible interest, giving a beneficiary or an insurance company as examples. Researchers and journalists can therefore get the content of a record without proving any relationship, while estate work still needs the certified version.
- $25 first copy: each additional copy of the same record ordered at the same time is $5, and fees are not refunded once the search is done.
- Anyone can order: the public gets a plain paper copy with the Social Security number redacted; family and tangible interest holders get certified copies.
- 1919 forward at the state: older deaths sit with counties and cities, and the Georgia Archives hold the originals through 1943.
- No personal checks: mail orders need a money order or cashier's check, and online orders a major debit or credit card.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Georgia's own systems: the Georgia Department of Public Health death records page, the department's vital records fees page, the department's page on ordering records by mail, the department's page on ordering records online, the department's About Vital Records page, the department's vital records office finder, the Georgia Archives death records research page, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Fees and what they buy
The department's fee schedule sets a death certificate at $25, with $5 for each additional copy. Georgia law requires payment before any search, and the fee becomes nonrefundable once the service has been provided. The search fee covers both outcomes: if the record is found, a certified certificate is included, and if not, the office issues a not on file letter instead. An amendment costs $10 plus the price of the new certificate. Records go by first class mail unless the applicant pays for expedited shipping, which is offered only on online orders.
Ordering online through ROVER or the vendor
The state's own online system, ROVER, is run by the Georgia Technology Authority with the Department of Public Health. It charges the $25 certificate fee plus an $8 processing fee, both nonrefundable, and takes Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. A FedEx option costs $16 per order and adds a tracking number, but the department is explicit that it speeds only the delivery, not the standard processing time of up to ten weeks. The online page also lists a third party vendor route with its own fees.
Online applicants must hold a valid physical government photo identification. The department states that it does not accept electronic or digital forms of identification, which rules out a mobile driver license for verification. Applicants also need the full name of the person who died, the date of death and the city or county where the death happened.
Ordering by mail and at the county
Mail requests use Form 3912, the Request for Search of Death Record, and the form must name the county in which the death occurred. A mailed order needs a copy of a current state driver license or identification card, proof of the qualifying relationship, and payment by money order or cashier's check, since personal checks are refused. Applications sent to the State Office of Vital Records at 1680 Phoenix Boulevard, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30349 are processed and shipped within ten weeks.
Mailing the same request to the vital records office of the county where the death happened is listed by the state as regular service, and the county offices also register deaths.
The Phoenix Boulevard office is one counter among 160. The department's office finder lists a vital records office for every county, and in a long run of them, Atkinson, Bacon, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barrow and Bartow at the top of the alphabet, the counter is the county probate court rather than a health department, so the listing is worth reading before driving over. One administrative rule catches families who wait on paperwork: any request left open for more than a year is closed automatically, and the applicant must start again with a new request and payment.
Before 1919 and the Georgia Archives
The Georgia Archives death records page explains that statewide registration began in 1919 and that the Archives hold the original certificates through 1943, with the 1919 to 1927 records indexed online in the Georgia Death Certificates collection. For 1944 to the present the Archives send people to the Department of Public Health, while the department itself says it covers 1919 to the present, so for the 1919 to 1943 years both doors are open: a certified copy from public health or the original at the Archives.
Earlier deaths depend on the city. Savannah kept death registers from 1803 to 1913, held at the City of Savannah Archives; Macon began recording deaths in 1882, Atlanta in 1889, Columbus in 1890 and Augusta in 1904, and Gainesville kept registers from 1908 to 1911 that are on microfilm at the Archives. An 1875 act ordered statewide registration but was funded for only two years, and the few surviving returns cover a dozen counties, including Carroll, Chattooga, Oglethorpe and Taliaferro.
The Archives add that a handful of certificates filed with the state before 1916 were only gathered into binders after 1919, which is why their file numbers run roughly in the order they arrived.
Correcting a Georgia death certificate
Amendments and corrections are handled by the State Office of Vital Records, and every correction must be mailed with supporting documentation for the change. The department publishes a death correction requirements document listing the proof needed for each kind of error, along with two forms: an Affidavit for Current Year Correction and Form 3977, the Affidavit for Amendment, the first of them named for corrections in the current year.
County offices can help start an amendment application before it goes to the state. Where an amendment rests on a certified court order, the original order or a sealed certified copy stays on file at the state office in a sealed file that can be opened only by court order or by the State Registrar.
Stillbirth and fetal death certificates
Only the State Office of Vital Records can issue a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth, which covers an unintended intrauterine fetal death. Parents may also ask for a fetal death certificate, which the fee schedule prices at $10 with $5 for each additional copy, well below the $25 charged for an ordinary death certificate.
Questions about Georgia death records
Related Georgia records
The Georgia birth certificates guide covers the same Phoenix Boulevard office from the birth side, the Georgia public records law page explains the Open Records Act, and each county vital records counter is listed on the Georgia county pages.