The Division of Vital Records says it issues certified copies for people who died in Maryland in 2012 or later and sends anyone asking about an earlier death to the Maryland State Archives. The State Archives describes its own holdings as death records from 1875 to 2014 for Baltimore City and 1898 to 2014 for the counties, and tells callers to go to the Division of Vital Records for deaths after 2014. The two pages overlap for 2012 to 2014, so a death in those years may be available from either office. The archives' guide also says a death within the last ten years is a matter for the Division of Vital Records.
The division is strict about who may apply. Its application form says a copy may go only to someone with a direct and tangible interest in the record under the Code of Maryland Regulations, COMAR 10.03.08, which covers surviving relatives, an authorized representative, beneficiaries, and people with a business need or a court order. The funeral director in charge of the final disposition may also order. Some local health departments issue death certificates too, and they are listed on the Maryland county pages.
- Ten then twelve: the first copy of a death certificate costs ten dollars and each additional copy in the same transaction costs twelve.
- Free for service members' claims: no fee is charged for a copy used in a dependent or beneficiary claim for a current or former member of the armed forces, with proof of service.
- Twenty five or five: the State Archives charges twenty five dollars for a certified paper copy and five dollars for an uncertified PDF.
- No refunds: if the division cannot find the record it keeps the fee and sends a Certification of Record Search.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Maryland's own systems: the Maryland Department of Health page on death and fetal death certificates, the Maryland death certificate application form, the Vital Statistics Administration fee table, the division's death certificate corrections page, the division's corrections appointment page, the Vital Statistics Administration home page and its scam alerts, the Maryland State Archives death certificate ordering page, the Maryland State Archives guide to death records, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Proving the interest and the identity
A mailed application has to come with a legible copy of a valid government photo ID, such as a driver license or non-driver photo ID showing the current address, or a passport. Someone without a government photo ID signs a declaration on the form and sends copies of two documents with their name and current address, chosen from a utility bill, a car registration, a pay stub, a bank statement, a tax return or W-2, a letter from a government agency asking for a vital record, or a lease.
In that case the certificate is mailed only to the address on those documents. Entitlement has to be proved separately, with a birth or marriage certificate for a relative, letters of administration, a written release from a surviving relative, a court order or papers showing a business need. The form also asks for the reason for the request and warns that false statements carry the criminal penalties in section 4-227 of the Health-General Article.
Fees, and what is free
The Vital Statistics Administration fee table lists a death certificate at ten dollars, an additional copy of the same death certificate in the same transaction at twelve dollars, and a fetal death certificate at twelve dollars. Internet orders add a thirteen dollar processing surcharge, and expedited shipping, available only for internet orders, is twenty dollars more. The first copy is not refundable: if the record cannot be located, the division sends a Certification of Record Search instead and keeps the fee.
Maryland waives the fee for a copy of the death certificate of a current or former member of the armed forces when the member asks for it, or when it will be used for a claim by a dependent or beneficiary of the member, as long as proof of service is provided.
Ordering by mail, online or by appointment
Mail applications go to the Division of Vital Records, P.O. Box 68760, Baltimore, MD 21215-0036, with the form, the ID copy, the entitlement papers, a check or money order payable to the Division of Vital Records and a self-addressed stamped envelope. Expedited shipping cannot be bought for a mailed order. Online orders go through VitalChek, which takes American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa and charges its own fee, and the department says it cannot vouch for the fees or the confidentiality of any other internet vendor.
The lobby is open by appointment only. Funeral facilities can also order through a dedicated funeral facility portal.
Phone and phishing scams
The Vital Statistics Administration carries two warnings on its home page. One is a phone scam aimed at people who misdial the division's number when ordering records, and the division says it will never ask for a Social Security number or a credit card PIN when processing a request. The other concerns phishing about vital records, including death certificates: the administration says it does not upload official records to any outside account and issues records only on request once entitlement is verified.
Questions go to 410-764-3038. Anyone who has given card details to a fraudster is told to contact the card issuer at once and report the scam to local police.
Corrections
A Maryland death certificate can be corrected under section 4-214 of the Health-General Article, in the circumstances that law allows. The applicant sends the Request for Correction or Amendment to Death Certificate form to the division with a ten dollar check or money order payable to the DVR, and the second page of the form lists the documents needed for each kind of change, which vary from case to case. The division says it can sometimes finish an amendment the same day at an appointment, depending on how complex it is, so applicants should bring all of their documents.
Older deaths at the State Archives
The Maryland State Archives at 350 Rowe Boulevard in Annapolis sells two kinds of copy. A certified copy, a paper record with a raised seal mailed by post, costs twenty five dollars and is what the archives recommend for pensions, estates, the MVA, court, dual citizenship and apostilles. An uncertified copy, meant for genealogists, costs five dollars and is sent as a PDF by email, but only if every detail of the record is supplied.
Neither fee is refunded if the information is incomplete or the record is not found, so the archives tell researchers to look up the details in the death indexes first, and to use the certified order form when any detail is uncertain.
The archives' guide puts every death index online and says all death records more than a hundred years old can now be viewed online from home. Baltimore City indexes run from 1875 and county indexes from 1898, with one gap: there is no index for county deaths from 1969 to 1972. From 1950 the state filed Baltimore City deaths in Soundex order, a code made of the first letter of the surname and three digits, so researchers need the code before they can use the index.
The help desk answers at msa.helpdesk@maryland.gov and 410-260-6487, and the Department of Health's own genealogy page also points family historians to the State Archives first.
Questions about Maryland death records
Related Maryland records
The division's birth records are covered in the Maryland birth certificates guide, estate files in the Maryland court records guide, and the Public Information Act in the Maryland public records law guide, with local offices on the Maryland county pages.