North Carolina Vital Records

On Tuesday, 08/16/22, our phone systems will be undergoing a second phase of upgrades. There may be brief periods during which both phone and voicemail services are unavailable. The service interruptions, if any, are most likely to occur in the morning. We expect phone services to return to normal operations before close of business on Tuesday. Updates to phone numbers will be available on our contacts page after the phone system upgrades are complete. We apologize for any inconvenience that results from phone service outages during the upgrades.

Expedited mail service has been temporarily suspended as of 1/10/2022. If your expedited order was postmarked prior to the suspension, it will be processed as an expedited order.

Some walk-in (in-person) certificate services have resumed by appointment only. Expedited processing fees ($15) apply in addition to the fees assessed for the service you are requesting. Expedited service is available only by visiting us at the state office. To make an appointment for expedited certificate purchase walk-in services only, please use the NC Vital Records Appointments calendar or call 919-792-5982.

• Note: At this time, the NCOVR is not accepting appointments for: birth or death certificate amendments, adoptions, paternities (including affidavits of parentage / AOPs), legitimations, court-ordered name changes, or delayed registration of birth.
• The appointments calendar provides scheduling for a 30-day period. If no appointments are currently available, please check back, as more appointments should become available later in the month.

Before scheduling an appointment or placing your certificate order, we strongly recommend you check the processing dates page for estimated processing and shipping dates to determine if estimated timeframes would meet your needs. If not, you may want to consider ordering a birth, death or marriage certificate from the Register of Deeds in the county where the event occurred. Divorce certificates may also be obtained from the clerk of court in the county where the divorce is filed.