What the apostille office needs to see
A Florida apostille on a birth certificate certifies one signature: the State Registrar's. The Florida Department of State's accepted documents page says birth certificates must be issued by the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics or a county health department and signed by the State Registrar. Before issuing the apostille, the state confirms that signature was valid when the certificate was issued.
So the job is not "find my birth certificate." It's "get a certified copy the state can verify." In practice that means:
- A certified copy issued by the Department of Health — from the Bureau in Jacksonville, a county health department, or through VitalChek, which orders from them.
- Certified in 2014 or later. That's our operating rule, and it's about the date the copy was issued, not your date of birth. Older certificates carry signatures we can't reliably get through. If yours is older, order a new one.
- Not a hospital certificate, a souvenir with footprints, or a photocopy. None of those are vital records.
- Not notarized. A Florida notary can't attest a copy of a birth certificate, so a notary stamp adds nothing.
Born in another state? That state's vital records office issues the certificate and that state's competent authority apostilles it. Born abroad to U.S. citizen parents? Your Consular Report of Birth Abroad is a federal document, authenticated by the U.S. Department of State, not Florida. We don't handle federal documents.
Who can order a Florida birth certificate
Florida treats birth records less than 125 years old as confidential. According to the Department of Health's birth certificates page, a certified copy can be issued only to:
- the registrant (the person named on the certificate), if 18 or older;
- a parent listed on the birth record;
- a legal guardian, with the guardianship papers;
- a legal representative of one of the people above, with documentation;
- anyone with a court order, with a copy of the order.
You'll need a valid photo ID: a driver's license, state ID card, passport or military ID.
If you aren't on that list — for example, an adult child ordering a living parent's certificate for a citizenship application — the eligible person signs a notarized Affidavit to Release a Birth Certificate (form DH1958), and you send it with both of your photo IDs.
If the registrant has died, a spouse, child, grandchild or sibling of legal age can order the certificate. Write "Registrant Deceased" on the application and include a copy of the death certificate. The copy you get is marked "Deceased." This comes up often in citizenship-by-descent files, where you may need a grandparent's birth certificate — order it early.
"Short form" or "long form": what Florida actually issues
The Department of Health doesn't use the words short form and long form. It issues two kinds of certified copies, both on security paper with the Florida embossed seal:
| Computer-generated certification | Photocopy-generated certificate | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A printed certificate with data from the state's database | A manually produced copy of the original birth record as filed |
| Where to order | Bureau, county health departments, VitalChek | Bureau of Vital Statistics; not available through VitalChek |
| State fee | $9 for the first copy (by mail or walk-in), $4 each additional | $14 for the first copy, $4 each additional |
| Speed | 3–5 business days plus shipping | Takes longer |
| Usually called | Short form | Long form |
Fees as listed by the Department of Health in October 2026; check the page before you pay.
The Department of Health says the computer-generated version is accepted by all state and federal agencies. Foreign authorities are a different story. Some registries and citizenship programs want details that may only appear on the original record, such as parents' places of birth. The Florida Department of State also notes that computer-generated birth records from before 2004 contain limited information and suggests checking with the consulate first.
Our advice: ask the receiving office a concrete question — "Do you need the parents' places of birth on the certificate?" — rather than "Do you need the long form?" The answer tells you which version to order. Both can be apostilled.
Four ways to order a certified copy
Pick the route that fits where you are and how fast you need it.
Online or by phone through VitalChek
VitalChek is the only vendor contracted by the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the Department of Health advises against other online vendors. Order at vitalchek.com or by phone at 877-550-7330 (615-372-6800 from outside the U.S.). The listed cost is $19 for the first computer-generated certificate, which includes a $9 search fee and a $10 rush fee, plus VitalChek's $7 processing fee and $4 per extra copy. UPS shipping costs extra. This is the easiest route from abroad because you pay by card.
By mail to the Bureau in Jacksonville
Send form DH726 (DH726S in Spanish), a copy of your photo ID, and a check or money order payable to "Vital Statistics" to Florida Department of Health, Vital Statistics, P.O. Box 210, Jacksonville, FL 32231-0042. From abroad, pay with a U.S.-dollar cashier's check or money order drawn on a U.S. bank. Add $10 and write RUSH on the envelope for priority processing. Results come back by regular USPS mail unless you include a prepaid delivery envelope.
In person at the Bureau
The lobby at 1217 N. Pearl St., Jacksonville, FL 32202 is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It takes cash, check, money order, Visa and Mastercard, but not tap-to-pay. Same-day service requires the $10 rush fee and isn't guaranteed.
At a county health department
Every Florida county health department can issue birth certificates for births from 1917 to the present, by mail or walk-in. Fees vary by county, and the certificate is still signed by the State Registrar, so it's accepted for the apostille. If you live near one, this is often the quickest way to hold a fresh certificate the same week.
What to put on the application
A written request needs the registrant's full name as it appears on the record, sex, date of birth (or a range of years, at $2 per year searched), city or county of birth, and both parents' full names before their first marriage. You add your own name, relationship to the registrant, mailing address, phone number and signature.
Three details save trouble later:
- Use the name at birth. If the registrant later married or changed their name, search under the birth name. The foreign office will connect the names through your marriage certificate or name change order, which may need their own apostilles.
- Amended records take longer. If the certificate was amended after an adoption, paternity or correction, the Department of Health warns of extra processing time.
- Order spares. Extra copies cost $4 each on the same order. Many families need one for the apostille and one to keep, and a second country may want its own apostilled copy later.
Ordering the certificate and the apostille together
The Department of Health has an apostille and notarial certificates page with an apostille-specific birth application (form DH726A). Its combined option runs through VitalChek: the Bureau sends your certificate to the Florida Department of State by UPS, and the apostilled certificate is mailed back to you by UPS. VitalChek charges its $7 fee on top of both agencies' fees and two UPS shipping charges.
That works when you're confident about the version and the destination. The trade-off is that you never see the certificate before it's apostilled, and you're back in the state's mail queue for the apostille. If you'd rather check the certificate first, or you're ordering other documents for the same country, have the certificate delivered to you and then send it to us.
Check the certificate when it arrives
Two minutes now saves a round trip.
- Issued by the Florida Department of Health (Bureau of Vital Statistics or a county health department)
- Signed by the State Registrar, on security paper with the embossed seal
- Certified in 2014 or later — check the issue date printed on the certificate
- Names and dates match the passport or application it will be used with
- The version (computer-generated or photocopy-generated) the receiving office asked for
- No staples, lamination, tape, highlighting or notes added
- No translation or other page attached to it yet
Getting it apostilled
Once you have the certificate, you can file it yourself with the Florida Department of State (the $10 state fee and the process are in how to get a Florida apostille) or order online and send it to us on the prepaid FedEx label sent after we review your documents. We review it, file it in person in Tallahassee, and return it in 5–7 business days.
Our price is $220 for one document, $380 for two and $160 each for three or more. That covers the state fee, the request form, in-person filing and FedEx both ways inside the U.S. It doesn't include what the Department of Health or VitalChek charges for the certificate itself. International return shipping is a flat $100 per order. For a country outside the Hague Convention, the Florida authentication certificate costs the same; see non-Hague authentication for the steps after ours, which we don't handle.
More on birth certificates by country is on our birth certificate apostille page, and the rules for all vital records are in the vital records guide.