Louisiana states its position in one line on the Department of Health's page on ordering birth records: Louisiana is a closed record state, which means birth and death certificates are not public records, and all requests must include proper identification, appropriate fees and a completed application. The Vital Records Registry sits within the Office of Public Health and keeps its central office in New Orleans rather than the state capital.
The list of people entitled to order is finite: the person named on the document, their current spouse, and their mother, father, adult child, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather or grandchild. An attorney may order on behalf of any of those people, including someone under eighteen, with a written declaration of representation on letterhead carrying a bar roll number, a copy of current identification, and the authorization of anyone presenting the request on the attorney's behalf. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Louisiana parish pages.
- Fifteen or nine dollars: the long form birth certificate and the short form birth certification card, twenty four dollars for the pair, and thirty four dollars for a long form issued by a clerk of court.
- A judgment of custody: any other adult seeking a child's record needs one; notarized custody papers and provisional mandates are not accepted.
- The fee is kept if nothing is found: Louisiana law retains the fee to cover the research, with a search covering the cited year and two years either side.
- Eight to ten weeks by post: the registry's own estimate, against walk in service in New Orleans or a clerk of court counter.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Louisiana's own systems: the Louisiana Department of Health page on ordering birth records, the Vital Records Registry service fees, the department's service fees page, the department's birth records questions and answers, each read on October 16, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The fee schedule, set by statute
Louisiana's vital records fees are fixed by statute, mostly in one section of the revised statutes, and the registry notes that they are subject to change in any legislative session and are not subject to waiver. A short form birth certification card costs nine dollars a copy and a long form birth certificate fifteen dollars a copy, and the department's service fees page prices the certificate and card together at twenty four dollars a pair and a commemorative birth certificate at fifty dollars.
The registry's printed fee sheet, last revised in 2007, notes that the card and the long form each include a four dollar charge for the Children's Trust Fund, a breakdown the current web page does not repeat. A death certificate costs seven dollars, an Orleans marriage certificate five dollars and an evidentiary document ten dollars. Certified copies issued by a clerk of court cost more: thirty four dollars for a long form birth certificate, forty eight dollars for the card and long form combination, which is sold only as a pair, and twenty six dollars for a death certificate.
Administrative actions carry their own prices, each including one certified copy of the new record, and here the two official fee lists differ: the web page gives twenty seven dollars fifty for filing a delayed certificate, for an adoption, legitimation or paternity action and for an amendment of a birth record, twenty five dollars fifty for an amendment of a death record and twenty three dollars fifty for an amendment of a marriage license, while the printed sheet still shows twenty seven dollars for the first three, twenty three dollars for a death record correction and nothing for a marriage license amendment.
A putative father registry certificate costs ten dollars, and an Orleans Parish marriage license twenty seven dollars fifty, which the printed sheet says includes a twelve dollar fifty charge for the Family Violence Fund. A fifty cent state charge is added to every postal or vendor order, and internet, telephone or kiosk orders placed through the vendor carry a further security fee.
What happens when the record is not there
Two statutory rules shape the risk a Louisiana applicant takes. Where a document order is placed but no record is on file, the law provides that the fee is retained to cover the expense of the research, and the registry explains what that research covers: a full record search looks at the year the applicant cites and two years on either side of it. So an applicant unsure of a birth year gets a five year window for one fee, but gets nothing back if the record falls outside it.
Separately, a non refundable fee of eighteen dollars applies to any correction of a vital event record, except where the correction is initiated by the requester within ninety days of the record being accepted for registration, and that fee is due when the alteration request is submitted.
Four ways to order
Walk in service runs at the Vital Records Central Office on Poydras Street in New Orleans, from eight in the morning until half past three, excluding state holidays, and callers should bring photo identification and the correct fees, with exact cash, a check or a money order accepted. A will call option lets a customer order through the state's vendor and choose collection, receiving an email when the order has been processed and is ready to be picked up.
Participating clerks of court around the state offer certified copies of birth records in both long and short form, for an additional fee, which is the practical answer for anyone outside New Orleans. And postal orders go to the registry's post office box in New Orleans with a copy of photo identification and the correct fees, with the registry asking applicants to allow approximately eight to ten weeks for delivery.
Ordering online, by telephone or by fax
The Office of Public Health does not itself accept credit cards or online orders. Internet, fax and telephone orders are placed through the independent company the department has partnered with, which charges an additional fee for the service and more for expedited handling, and takes the major credit cards. The same company handles order status inquiries. The department's questions page adds that no record can be faxed, because a valid copy needs the raised seal of the registry, and that the registry cannot search its files for free: the fee for a certified copy is treated as a search fee even when no record is on file.
Custody, authorizations and children's records
Louisiana is strict about who may obtain a child's certificate. Where an adult other than the entitled relatives listed above requests a child's record, they must present a judgment of custody, and the registry states that notarized custody papers or provisional custody mandates are not acceptable. For anyone else, the state disclosure of records statute requires authorization: to release a birth or death record to a person who is not entitled, the registrant must submit an authorization release of records together with a copy of the identification of the person authorized to receive the certified copy.
That mechanism is how an adult can send a friend, a caregiver or an employer's representative to collect a certificate on their behalf.
Pre adoption records, keepsakes and apostilles
The registry maintains three further routes alongside the ordinary certificate. An adopted person born in Louisiana who is twenty four or older may obtain a non certified copy of the original birth certificate from the sealed file, under a 2022 change to the adoption provisions of the vital records law; no other family member may ask for it, the request must carry the applicant's original signature so it cannot be placed over the internet, the processing fee is fifteen dollars fifty and is not refunded, and a contact preference form left in the file by a birth parent is handed over with the copy.
A commemorative birth certificate, sold as a keepsake to celebrate a birth, is a certified document carrying the signatures of the Governor, the First Lady, the department secretary and the State Registrar, and it is ordered only through the central office in New Orleans. And an apostille is the version prepared for a foreign country: a certified copy signed by the State Registrar that the holder then sends to the Louisiana Secretary of State, with that office's own fee, for the additional certification, which the department says is routinely required for a transfer abroad by an employer, a foreign marriage, a foreign adoption or a dual citizenship application.
Birth records stay confidential for one hundred years from the year of the event; after that they are public and come from the State Archives at the Secretary of State's office rather than the registry.
Questions about Louisiana birth certificates
Related Louisiana records
Louisiana's other records guides on this site are the Louisiana public records law guide for the Public Records Law, the Louisiana death records guide for the same registry, the Louisiana court records guide for the clerks of court, and the Louisiana parish pages for every parish office.