The Tennessee Office of Vital Records reviews, registers, amends, issues and maintains the original certificates of births, deaths, marriages and divorces that occur in the state, working from the first floor of the Andrew Johnson Tower at 710 James Robertson Parkway in Nashville. Its vital records pages also describe the feature the office itself puts first: all county health departments can issue any birth or death certificate that has been registered statewide with the office, so there is no need to travel to the county where the birth or death occurred.
Two conditions apply at whichever counter is used. Identification is required when the application and the fee are handed over. And where the applicant is not a qualified applicant, meaning a parent, child or spouse, they must present documents supporting their right to the certificate, which the office sets out in its entitlement guidelines, drawn from sections 68-3-205 and 68-3-206 of the Tennessee Code and the disclosure rules under them. Local offices that issue vital records appear on the Tennessee county pages.
- Fifteen dollars a copy: the first certified copy and every additional copy cost the same, and a no record letter costs the same again.
- Any county will do: every county health department issues certificates registered statewide, whatever county the birth happened in.
- Qualified means close: the person named on the record, a parent, a spouse or a child; anyone else must document their entitlement.
- A hundred years, then the archives: the office keeps a birth record for a century before it goes to the State Library and Archives for public research.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Tennessee's own systems: the Tennessee Office of Vital Records, the office's fee schedule, the office's processing times, the office's guide to ordering in person, at a county health department, by mail or online, the office's identification requirements, the office's entitlement guidelines, the office's genealogy research page, the federal where to write for vital records page for Tennessee, each read on October 16, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What fifteen dollars buys, and what the rest costs
Tennessee prices a birth certificate at fifteen dollars for the first copy and fifteen dollars for each additional copy, with no discount for ordering several at once, and the same figure applies to a marriage, divorce or death certificate, a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth and a commemorative certificate of nonviable birth. The fee is spent whether or not the record turns up: if the certificate cannot be located the applicant receives a letter certifying that no record was found, and the office states that the fee for a no record letter is the same as for a certified copy.
Verified information on a birth, death, marriage or divorce, supplied even where the record cannot be found, costs fifteen dollars. A certified copy of a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity costs five dollars and is issued only with a purchased birth certificate, and a copy of the supporting documentation used to file or amend a record, requested with the certificate, costs five dollars as well. The administrative work is priced at fifteen dollars an item: amending a certificate six months or more after the event, preparing a new birth certificate by adoption, preparing and filing a report of adoption for a foreign born person adopted in Tennessee, preparing and filing a delayed certificate, and removing a father's name on a rescission of an acknowledgment of paternity.
Amending a record within six months of the event costs nothing, except in the case of a rescission, and opening a sealed file and providing one copy of its contents costs thirty dollars.
Who is entitled, and what the rest must show
For a birth record the entitled individuals are the person named on it, the mother, the father, a son or daughter, and a husband or wife, with one firm exception the office prints in bold: a father who is not listed on the child's certificate is not entitled to it. Three further groups may obtain the record on documentation. A legal guardian supplies a certified copy of the court ordered guardianship papers. The holder of a power of attorney may use it only while the certificate holder is still living.
And an attorney supplies a letter on the firm's letterhead naming the entitled party and stating that the firm represents that person or their estate in the matter, with a copy of the bar card, a driver's license and the representation agreement. The office also accepts a letter from the entitled party, either notarized or accompanied by that party's identification, which is how an adult child helping a parent, or an assistant sent to the counter, collects a certificate.
For a pick up on someone else's behalf the rule is the same in two steps: a photocopy of a signed government identification card for both the representative and the entitled person, plus a signed statement from the entitled person giving the office permission to release the copy, and where that statement is notarized only the representative's own identification is needed.
Identification, and the two document alternative
One valid item satisfies the identification requirement: a current driver's license showing its issue and expiration dates, a current passport, a military identification card, an alien, temporary or permanent resident card, an employment authorization card, a certificate of naturalization, or a certificate of citizenship or citizenship identification card, and photocopies are acceptable. An applicant with none of those presents two items from a second list: a current pay stub or wage statement, a vehicle registration with name and current address, a voter registration card, a military discharge form, a utility bill, bank statement or deposit slip with name and current address, a health care coverage card, a medical record, the application page of an insurance policy, a signed social security card, or, for someone whose identification has been stolen, a copy of the police report or other official documents supporting the theft.
Two exceptions remove the requirement altogether. An application that is signed and notarized needs no identification documents at all. And for a newborn's certificate the mother's copy of the birth certificate issued at the hospital may serve as identification, provided it is dated within the last two calendar years.
The counter, the county and the post
The Nashville office serves walk in applicants without an appointment on weekdays from eight in the morning until four, through the Vital Records entrance on the Rosa Parks Boulevard side of the Andrew Johnson Tower, with parking on Rev. Kelly M. Smith Way; paper order forms sit on the counter, and the customer service window takes cash, checks, credit and debit cards and money orders. Anyone who is not a qualified applicant must support their entitlement when the application is handed over, or have a qualified applicant submit it.
A county health department counter works the same way, because the electronic issuance system lets every county issue any birth or death certificate registered statewide, with identification required when the application and fees are submitted. A postal request to the Nashville office encloses the completed and signed application for a certified copy, form PH-1654, which the office also publishes in Spanish, either a photocopy of a government issued identification card showing the requester's signature or a notarized application, and a check or money order payable to Tennessee Vital Records.
The office does not take online orders itself; the single vendor the state has authorized processes card orders for shipment, and any additional fees are the vendor's.
How long it takes, by service
The office publishes its processing times with a date, June 23, 2026 at the last update, and a warning that they move with the volume of requests and the demands on its workforce. A request for a certificate that needs no change to the record is handled the same day in person and in three days by mail or online. The work that changes a record takes longer: amendments to birth, death, marriage and divorce certificates, voluntary acknowledgments of paternity, and court ordered name changes and orders of paternity each take two weeks where the record is on file, while adoptions and delayed certificates of birth take forty five days.
A birth registered in a hospital is generally available for issue five to ten business days after the birth, with four to six weeks more for delivery where the certificate is requested by post, and a birth outside a hospital or birthing facility is filed through the health department of the county where the child was born, which initiates the filing before the child is a year old, which is why the delayed certificate route exists for the rest.
A hundred years, then the archives
The office keeps birth records for a hundred years and death, marriage and divorce records for fifty, and after that time it sends them to the Tennessee State Library and Archives for public access and family research. That line decides the genealogy question in Tennessee: a birth within the last century is obtainable only by an entitled person on the rules above, at fifteen dollars, while an older birth is a research request to the archives rather than a certificate order.
For a living person whose exact date is uncertain the office will still search, since the fifteen dollars buys the search and a no record letter if nothing is found, but an order placed directly with the office must give at least the year of the event or a range of years so that staff can conduct a thorough search, an order through the vendor takes an estimated date, and the office warns that incomplete date information may delay processing or leave the record unfound.
Questions about Tennessee birth certificates
Related Tennessee records
Tennessee's other records guides on this site are the Tennessee public records law guide for the Public Records Act, the Tennessee death records guide for the same office, the Tennessee court records guide for the clerks of court, and the Tennessee county pages for every county office.
A certified birth certificate is the document the Tennessee DMV asks for first: the Tennessee REAL ID, the Tennessee state ID card, Tennessee learner's permits, applying for a Tennessee license and the rest of the SearchSystems Tennessee DMV guide.