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Death certificates: who needs one, how many, and what they cost

For families · US · Last reviewed Aug 29, 2026

A certified copy of a death certificate costs $16 in Idaho, $20 in Pennsylvania, and $15 in New York City. In Maryland the same copy is $10 from the state office and as much as $25 from a county health department. There’s no national price. The number depends on which counter the copy comes from.

Tell your funeral director how many certified copies you want before the certificate is filed. Ordering them all at once is simpler, and in several states less expensive, than coming back later.

What a certified copy is

A certified copy is a copy issued by the government office that holds the record, printed on its own paper, with a raised seal or a security background and the registrar’s signature. It’s the legal proof that a person died.

A photocopy or a scan of that document isn’t certified. It’s a picture. Some offices accept the picture and some don’t, and that distinction is the whole reason people order more than one.

Who tends to require a certified copy

The institutions that move money or property want the certified copy. The ones closing an account or updating a file will usually take a photocopy. That’s a rule of thumb for planning, not a promise about any one company. Ask each institution what it takes before you decide how many to buy.

The ones that usually want a certified copy:

The ones that usually take a photocopy:

Social Security is usually not on either list, and that’s worth knowing before you buy a copy for it. The Social Security Administration says funeral homes report a death to it as a matter of course, so the family normally doesn’t have to. If no funeral home is involved, or if the person who died was receiving benefits, or if you want to apply for survivors benefits, call Social Security directly.

The veteran waivers, which nobody offers you

Connecticut waives the fee for one certified copy for a deceased veteran when a spouse, child, or parent asks for it, under C.G.S. 7-74(c).

Pennsylvania waives the certificate cost for active and honorably discharged members of the armed forces and their spouses, up to ten copies per person per year, under Act 137 of 2024. The online service fee isn’t waived, only the certificate.

New York waives the fee entirely when the copy is required by the Veterans Administration, under Public Health Law 4173(3)(a).

Ask. The waiver isn’t automatic and the counter won’t offer it.

How many to order

Count the accounts rather than picking a number. One certified copy for each life insurance policy. One for each bank or brokerage where the money isn’t already jointly held or payable on death. One for each vehicle title. One for the house. One to keep. Then consider whether the estate is going to probate, because probate consumes copies of its own.

Anyone who hands you a single number without asking about the estate is guessing.

The trade-off on ordering extra

Ordering extra copies now costs money you may not need to spend. Ordering them later costs time when you have less patience for it, and in some states it costs more per copy.

The math isn’t the same everywhere. Some states discount the additional copies bought in the same order, so ten at once is genuinely less expensive than two now and eight later:

Other states charge the same for every copy, so there’s no discount to lose by waiting:

So in Pennsylvania, buying four now and four in a month costs exactly what buying eight now costs. In Texas it doesn’t. Look up your own state before you decide, and if you can’t find it, call your county.

Who orders them

Usually your funeral director. The funeral home files the death certificate with the registrar, so the funeral home is standing at that counter anyway. Ordering your copies at the same time is the ordinary practice. Ask how it works where you are, because filing duties and deadlines are set state by state.

The copies show up on the price list as a cash advance, which federal law defines as an item the funeral provider obtains from a third party and pays for on your behalf (16 CFR 453.1). It’s a government charge passing through, not a service the home is selling you.

Ask what the funeral home charges you for the errand on top of the government fee. Some charge nothing. One Idaho firm publishes a $100 processing fee for the local issuance route, printed on its own price list (Bella Vida, Garden City, effective 2026-08-01). A family only finds a charge like that by asking.

How long they take

The certificate can’t be issued until the cause of death is certified. That signature comes from the physician, the coroner, or the medical examiner, not from the funeral home. Nobody at the funeral home controls that signature.

There’s no verified national timeline to give you, and this site won’t invent one. Ask the funeral director what the registrar in that county is currently running, and ask again if the cause of death is pending or the death is under investigation.

What can be said precisely is a different clock. Some states set an outer deadline for the funeral director to obtain the disposition permit: five calendar days in Connecticut (C.G.S. 7-65(a)) and seven calendar days in Rhode Island (R.I. Gen. Laws 23-3-18(a)). Those are permit deadlines, not certificate timelines, and the two shouldn’t be blurred.

Why the price is different depending on where you ask

Three states show the same certificate carrying two or three lawful prices at once, and none of it involves anybody being wrong.

North Carolina: $10 per certified copy at the county register of deeds, under N.C.G.S. 161-10(a)(8). The state office in Raleigh charges $24 for the first and $15 for each additional. A funeral home uses the register of deeds, so $10 is the number most families see.

Texas: $20 first and $3 additional at the state vital statistics office, $21 and $4 at a county clerk or local registrar. The extra dollar per copy is a preservation fee the local office may add under Tex. Health & Safety Code 191.0045. Tarrant County publishes exactly $21 and $4.

Maryland: $10 first and $12 additional at the state Division of Vital Records, $10 at a Motor Vehicle Administration branch, and $18 to $25 for the first copy at the county health departments that issue. Baltimore City and Baltimore County issue no certificates at all, so families there use the state office.

And in some states the price isn’t a state number at all. Massachusetts sets it town by town, and the Commonwealth neither caps it nor sets it. Fourteen Massachusetts municipalities read on 2026-08-19 carried five different prices between $10 and $20, with towns inside the same county disagreeing. Five New Jersey municipal registrars sampled the same day ran $10 to $25 for the first copy. New York charges $10 at an ordinary local registrar, $15 in the five boroughs, and $30 from the state office, and exactly seven named jurisdictions may set their own price under PHL 4173(3)(b).

If your state isn’t named here, this site hasn’t verified it. Call the county where the death occurred and ask two questions: what a certified copy costs, and what each additional copy in the same order costs.

One charge that is not the certificate

Watch for ordering costs sitting next to the price. Pennsylvania adds a $10 service fee for an online order. Maryland adds $13 for an internet order. New York City adds $2.75 in person, $7.50 by mail, and $9.30 online, on top of the $15 per certificate. Those are the cost of the channel, not the cost of the document, and letting the funeral home file and order at the counter avoids most of them.

The permit is also a separate thing. A disposition permit or a cremation permit is the document that authorizes the burial or the cremation, and it isn’t a death certificate. New York City charges $40 for its disposition permit, which covers burial, cremation, and transport out of the city alike, under NYC Health Code 207.13(g). The rest of New York State charges nothing for the permit, and the $20 state payment that used to sit on each burial and removal permit was repealed effective 2025-04-01 by Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2025. An upstate New York price list still showing a $20 state permit line is out of date.

The short version

Ask your funeral director how many certified copies you want, and give a number based on the accounts that will actually need one. Ask what the government charges in your county and what the funeral home charges to get them. If you’re a veteran’s spouse, child, or parent, ask whether your state waives the fee. And if a price list gives you a certificate figure that doesn’t match what the county publishes, the county is the one to believe.

Every fee named on this page was read from a statute, a state fee schedule, or a county office’s own published page on 2026-08-19. Check them yourself.

Sources

  1. N.C.G.S. 161-10(a)(8) North Carolina register of deeds fees: $10.00 per certified copy
  2. C.G.S. 7-74 Connecticut certified copy fee, set statewide, with the veteran waiver at subsection (c)
  3. N.Y. Public Health Law 4173 New York registrar fees for a certified copy, and the seven jurisdictions that may set their own
  4. Md. Code, Health-General 4-217 Maryland certified copy fee: $10 for the first, $12 for each additional in the same transaction
  5. Tex. Health & Safety Code 191.0045 The Texas preservation fee a local registrar or county clerk may add, not more than $1 per certified copy
  6. 16 CFR 453.1 Cash advance item: anything the funeral provider obtains from a third party and pays for on the purchaser's behalf, which is what certificate copies are on a price list