A birth certificate is one of those documents you rarely think about until the moment you need one. A passport application, a driving licence, a school admission, a bank account, giving notice of marriage: all of them can ask for an original birth certificate, and a photocopy is usually not good enough. The good news is that getting a copy in the UK is straightforward, cheap, and mostly done online. This guide explains exactly how to do it, what it costs, how long it takes, and the mistakes that add weeks to the wait.

A birth certificate is a certified copy of the entry in the official register of births. It is not the same thing as the hospital record of a birth, and it is not a form of photo identification. It proves the facts recorded at registration: the person's full name, date and place of birth, and, on a full certificate, the names and occupations of their parents. The General Register Office, known as the GRO, holds a central copy of every birth, death and marriage registered in England and Wales since 1837, and it is the office that issues most replacement certificates.

Full certificate or short certificate?

There are two versions of a birth certificate, and the fee is the same for both. A full birth certificate is an exact copy of the full record in the register, including the parents' details. A short birth certificate gives much less information and contains no details of parentage. For almost every official purpose, including a passport or driving licence application, you need the full certificate. A short certificate is mainly useful as a simple proof of age. If you are unsure which one you need, order the full certificate: it costs no more and it is accepted everywhere the short one is.

Who can order a birth certificate?

Anyone can apply for a copy of a birth certificate. You do not have to be the person named on it, and you do not have to be a relative. The GRO does ask for full identifying information when the birth was registered within the last 50 years, so you will need to know the person's full name, date of birth and place of birth, and ideally the parents' names, to help the office find the right entry. If the details you give are vague, especially for a common name, the GRO may only be able to check the first few matching entries, and if none of them agree with your information you will be told to reapply with more detail.

Where to order a birth certificate

The office you order from depends on where the birth was registered. For births registered in England and Wales, order from the General Register Office through GOV.UK. For births registered in Scotland, certificates come from the National Records of Scotland. For births registered in Northern Ireland, the route is through nidirect. The processes and fees are different in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so make sure you are using the service for the right part of the UK before you pay anything. The rest of this guide covers England and Wales, which is the route most people need.

How to order a birth certificate online, step by step

Ordering online is the cheapest and quickest way to get a certificate, and the GRO says so itself. Start on GOV.UK at the page for ordering a birth, death, marriage or civil partnership certificate, and follow the link to the GRO's secure online ordering service. The first time you use it, you will need to register with an email address and a password. The whole application takes around ten minutes.

You will be asked for your full name and postal address, a contact email address, and the details of the birth you are applying for. You will also need a valid debit or credit card to pay. If you have a GRO index reference number for the birth, enter it: it tells the GRO exactly which entry in the register you want, and it makes the order cheaper and faster. Once you have paid, you will get a payment confirmation by email, and you can track the order in your GRO account.

If you would rather not order online, you can order by phone on 0300 123 1837, Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm, or by post using a GRO certificate application form, which you can download from GOV.UK. Both routes cost more than ordering online, so they are worth using only if you cannot apply on the internet. You can also order a certificate from the local register office in the district where the birth was registered, which is often the fastest option for a recent birth.

What is a GRO index reference number?

The GRO index reference is the number that identifies the exact entry in the register. With it, your order is a simple lookup. Without it, a member of GRO staff has to search the index for you, and each search costs an extra £3.50 and covers a three-year period: the year you give, plus one year on either side. Finding the reference before you order is worth the effort. You can search the GRO's online indexes through the family history route on GOV.UK, and the historical birth and death indexes, covering births more than 100 years old, can be searched free of charge on the GRO website. A free transcription of the index from 1837 to 1983 is also available through FreeBMD.

How much does a birth certificate cost?

For England and Wales, the GRO's published fees for a certificate ordered online with a GRO index reference are £12.50 for the standard service and £38.50 for the priority service. Extra copies of the same certificate ordered at the same time cost the same price each, so there is no bulk discount: five certificates cost five times £12.50. If you do not have the GRO index reference, the standard service costs £16.00 online, because the £3.50 search fee is added, and the priority service costs £42.00 online. Ordering by phone or by post costs more: £17.00 for a standard certificate with a reference, and £43.00 for priority.

There is one charge to be aware of if the GRO cannot find the record. If the office is unable to produce a certificate from the information you supplied, it keeps £4.00 of the fee to cover the work done, and any additional administration fees you paid are not refundable. That is another reason to check your details carefully before you submit the order, and to find the GRO index reference first when you can. Fees change from time to time, so check the current figures on GOV.UK before you order rather than relying on an old price quoted elsewhere.

How long does a birth certificate take?

With the standard service, your certificate is despatched on the fourth working day after the GRO receives your order, provided you supplied the GRO index reference. Without the reference, the standard service takes much longer: the certificate is despatched on the fifteenth working day. With the priority service, the certificate is despatched on the next working day, as long as the order is received before 4pm. Standard certificates are posted by second class post and priority certificates by first class post, and the GRO offers paid upgrades including Royal Mail Special Delivery and overseas delivery by DHL.

If you need the certificate urgently, the priority service is the honest answer, but it is worth doing the maths first. Priority costs £26 more than standard for the same document. It is worth paying when something expensive is waiting on the certificate, such as a passport application with a deadline or a property transaction on hold. It is not worth paying when you simply want the document for your own records. One useful trick if you need several copies and only one of them urgently: order one on priority and the rest on the standard service, since there is no discount for ordering in bulk anyway.

Births registered in the last six months

The GRO is not able to issue certificates for births that took place within the last six months. For a recent birth, apply to the register office in the district where the birth was registered instead. Local register offices also hold the records for events registered in their area, and for a recent registration they are often quicker than the GRO. Many councils let you order a certificate online through their own website, and the cost is the same £12.50 per copy charged by most register offices. If you are not sure which register office holds the record, GOV.UK has a register office finder.

Registering a new baby's birth

Ordering a copy is different from registering a birth in the first place. If you have just had a baby, you must register the birth within 42 days. Registration itself is free, and you do it by booking an appointment at your local register office. At the appointment you will be given a copy of the birth certificate, full or short, for the standard fee. It is worth ordering an extra copy or two at the same appointment if you think you will need them later, since each additional copy costs the same and saves a separate order. You will need to take identification with you, and the registrar will ask for details including the baby's name, date and place of birth, and the parents' names and occupations.

What if the details on a certificate are wrong?

If you spot an error on a birth certificate, such as a misspelt name or a wrong date, it can be corrected, but only through the register office that holds the original record. The GRO cannot amend an entry itself. You will need to provide evidence of the correct information, and there is a fee for a correction. Small errors, such as a spelling mistake made at registration, are usually straightforward to fix. Changing a name on a certificate is a different matter: a birth certificate records the name given at registration, and changing it generally requires a deed poll or a statutory declaration, not a correction to the register.

Using a birth certificate abroad

If you need to use a UK birth certificate in another country, the authorities there may ask for it to be legalised, which means getting an apostille stamp from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The GRO guidance points applicants to GOV.UK's legalisation service for the current fee and process. A PDF or a digital image of a historical record is not a substitute: the GRO offers PDFs of birth records more than 100 years old for £8.00 and an online view digital image for £3.00, but these have no evidential value, and a paper certified copy is required for official purposes such as a passport, a driving licence or giving notice of marriage.

Avoid third-party certificate websites

Search for how to get a birth certificate and you will find commercial websites offering to order one for you. They are not the GRO, and they charge far more than the official fee for doing the same thing. The only official route in England and Wales is GOV.UK and the GRO's own ordering service. If a website is not on gov.uk, if it charges a handling fee on top of the certificate price, or if it asks for far more personal information than the GRO needs, do not use it. The official service costs £12.50 for a standard certificate ordered online, and anything much above that is a middleman's markup.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need the person's permission to order their birth certificate? No. Birth certificates are public records, and anyone can order a copy. Can I get a birth certificate the same day? Only by collecting from a register office in person in some areas, or by using the GRO priority service, which despatches the next working day. There is no instant online certificate. Can I use a photocopy for a passport application? No. HM Passport Office needs an original certified certificate. Can I order a certificate for a birth registered abroad? If the birth was registered with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Overseas Registration Unit, the GRO cannot supply a copy until the November of the following year, and before that you need to contact the Overseas Registration Unit directly. How many copies should I order? Order as many as the organisations asking for one, since most of them want to keep an original, and extra copies ordered at the same time cost the same as the first.