One office issues every Kansas birth certificate: the Office of Vital Statistics in the Curtis State Office Building at 1000 SW Jackson Street in Topeka, where the register begins on July 1, 1911. For a birth before that date the state has nothing to issue: the department points to the Kansas Historical Society, while the federal where to write page says to write to the county clerk in the county where the birth occurred. The lobby is open for walk in service from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon on weekdays, and a walk in request takes around fifteen to twenty minutes where the record is found without difficulty. Some delayed certificates of birth on file carry dates back to the 1860s, filed under authority the office received in 1940 for people then living whose births had never been recorded.
The money is a search fee rather than a price per document. The fee regulation sets twenty dollars for the first certified copy or abstract and twenty dollars for each additional copy or abstract of the same record requested at the same time, so Kansas does not discount a second copy the way many states do, and the fee buys a five year search of the files covering the year named plus two years either side. A requester may name a different five year span, or more than one, but each span costs the full fee, and where the certificate is not located the fee is kept for the search. Two groups are exempt under the fee statute. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Kansas county pages.
- Twenty dollars, and twenty again: the first copy and every additional copy of the same record cost the same, with no discount.
- A five year window: the fee buys a search of the year named plus two years either side, and each further span costs again.
- Free for veterans and voters: one copy free on veterans benefit correspondence, and free where a certificate is needed to vote.
- The register opens July 1, 1911: earlier births are a question for the Kansas Historical Society or the county clerk, not the state office.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Kansas's own systems: the Kansas fee statute, K.S.A. 65-2418, the disclosure statute, K.S.A. 65-2422d, the adoption statute, K.S.A. 65-2423, the department fee regulations K.A.R. 28-17-6 and 28-17-12 as filed with the Secretary of State, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment page on ordering by mail, the federal guidance on where to write for Kansas vital records, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment birth certificate page, each read on October 16, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The two free routes
The fee statute carries two exemptions that are worth knowing before anybody pays. The first is for veterans. Where a person exhibits correspondence from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or the Kansas Office of Veterans Services indicating that they are applying for benefits and need the requested information to obtain them, the secretary is directed to charge no fee for a certified copy, an abstract or a search; a second or subsequent copy carries the usual fee.
The second is for voting. No fee may be charged or accepted for a certified copy of a birth certificate requested by a person aged seventeen or over for the purpose of voting, where the applicant lacks the identification the election statutes require or needs the record to meet the voter registration requirements. That route asks something of the applicant in return: a sworn statement that they plan to register to vote in Kansas and do not possess any of the documents that count as evidence of United States citizenship, with those documents specifically listed on the affidavit.
How the fee is divided
Kansas writes into statute where the twenty dollars goes, which explains why the figure does not fall for a second copy. Three dollars of the fee for the first copy of a birth certificate or abstract, and one dollar of the fee for each additional copy of the same record requested at the same time, is paid to the state treasurer for the permanent families account of the family and children investment fund. The balance goes to the civil registration and health statistics fee fund that pays for the register itself.
Death certificates are split differently, with four dollars of the first copy and two dollars of each additional copy going to the district coroners fund. A requester gains nothing from this arithmetic except an explanation, but it is the reason the price list has no bulk rate.
The eligibility test, and who decides it
The disclosure statute states the test in terms of interest rather than of relationship. Except in the limited child support situations the statute names, the state registrar may not permit inspection of the records, or issue a certified copy or abstract of a certificate or part of one, unless satisfied that the applicant has a direct interest in the matter recorded and that the information contained in the record is necessary for the determination of personal or property rights.
The application puts the same test in plainer words: the records are not open for public inspection, and the requester must be named on the record, be an immediate family member, or provide legal proof that the record is necessary for the determination of personal or property rights, with guardianship papers where a court has appointed a guardian. If the registrar says no, the decision is not the end of the matter, because the statute makes it subject to review by the secretary or by a court under the Kansas judicial review act.
Identification, with and without a photo
Citing the rise in identity theft, the office limits acceptable identification to a government issued photo document, state or federal, which may come from the United States or from another country of residence; a photocopy of a current driver's license, state identification card, passport or visa, or military identification qualifies, and originals are not to be posted. For an applicant with no government photo identification the office takes photocopies of any two of a short list: the social security number, a bank statement showing the current address, a car registration or title showing the current address, a utility bill showing the current address, or a pay stub carrying the applicant's name and social security number together with the name and address of the business.
A mailed request may be the signed application or a letter, but either must carry the full name on the certificate, the date of birth, the sex, the Kansas city and county of birth, the mother's maiden name, the father's full name, the relationship to the person named, the reason for the request, which the office says it asks so that it can provide the right service, a daytime telephone number, a mailing address and a handwritten signature, with a business size stamped envelope for each different record.
A request with insufficient information, the wrong payment or an ineligible requester comes back with a form explaining why.
Six ways to order, and what each one waits
The office publishes a route by route table. A walk in at the Topeka lobby pays twenty dollars a copy and waits around fifteen to twenty minutes. A mailed request, paid by check or money order to Kansas Vital Statistics and never in cash, is processed in seven to ten business days depending on the volume at the time; sending it by a priority courier buys nothing on the return leg unless a prepaid self addressed priority envelope is enclosed, because the office will not use an applicant's courier account.
An internet or telephone order through the state's vendor adds a fifteen dollar expedited service fee to the twenty dollars, is paid by credit card, and is processed within three to five business days of reaching the office. And the state's own mobile application takes one certified copy per order for twenty dollars plus a five dollar processing fee, paid by card or bank transfer, either for regular mail in seven to ten business days or for will call, where an email arrives when the certificate is ready, usually the following business day, and only the applicant may collect it, with a current government issued photo identification; the office asks nobody to come before that email, since the certificate will not be there.
Adoption, and a foreign birth with a Kansas certificate
The adoption statute sets out what happens to the paperwork. On receiving a certified decree of adoption, or the documents evidencing a finalized foreign adoption, together with the report of adoption form, the state registrar prepares a supplementary certificate or abstract in the adopted person new name, then seals and files the original certificate of birth with the certified copy attached. Those sealed documents may be opened by the registrar only on the demand of the adopted person if of legal age, or by order of a court, and on a certified order annulling an adoption the original certificate is restored to its original place in the files.
A separate provision covers a child born in a foreign country but adopted in Kansas, or born and adopted abroad with the adoption filed here: the registrar registers a Kansas birth certificate showing the new name from the decree, the true country of birth and the date of birth, and the certificate states on its face that it is issued under that subsection of the statute.
The other fees in the same regulation
The regulation that sets the twenty dollar certificate fee also prices the unusual requests. A certified copy of an heirloom certificate, the decorative version of the record, costs forty dollars. A copy of the supporting documentation used to place a certificate on file costs twenty dollars, with ten cents for each page where the documentation runs beyond five pages. A non certified copy or abstract sought for statistical research purposes costs fifteen dollars where the state certificate number is provided and twenty where it is not.
A search of the files needed to prepare an amendment to a certificate already on file carries the same twenty dollars as an ordinary search. And filing a delayed certificate of birth costs thirty dollars for the filing and registration under the companion regulation, which puts the same thirty dollars on a foreign born certificate, although the department's own fee table lists twenty dollars to file an adoption or foreign born certificate and warns that a delayed filing can take up to six months; once filed, a certified copy may be obtained at the ordinary price.
Confidentiality, and the records that are open
The disclosure statute makes it unlawful for an officer or employee of the state to disclose data contained in vital statistical records except as authorized, and extends the same prohibition to anyone who possesses, stores or handles the records under contract with the state. It also forbids disclosure of information about the birth of a child in a manner that enables a determination that the child was born out of wedlock, except on court order where the information is necessary to determine personal or property rights, or to the federal and state officers who need it for child support enforcement.
One category is open to anybody, and it matters to genealogists: records of births, deaths or marriages created before July 1, 1911 under the 1885 session laws, and not in the custody of the secretary of health and environment, are open to inspection by any person, with the confidentiality rules expressly not applying to them.
Questions about Kansas birth certificates
Related Kansas records
Kansas's other records guides on this site are the Kansas public records law guide for the Open Records Act, the Kansas death records guide for the same office, the Kansas court records guide for the judicial branch case look up, and the Kansas county pages for every county office.