Ordering Certificates (Extracts)

You can order a Scottish birth, death or marriage certificate (officially called ‘extracts’ in Scotland) from 1855 onwards and a Civil Partnership certificate from 2004 to date.

Certificates issued by registrars are originals and issued on official, numbered paper. One free abbreviated certificate is issued when registering a birth or death.

We issue ‘full’ certificates after this unless you specifically request an ‘abbreviated’ version. The fees are the same.

How to request a certificate

Please send your request with details of:

• the name (including name at birth if different)
• date and place of registration of the birth, death, marriage or civil partnership

by email to registrars@cne-siar.gov.uk alternatively you can phone your local office contact us.

If you do not have all the details we will try to identify the certificate for you.

We will check we can provide the certificate (please see below), confirm the fee and advise how to make payment.

Recent certificates

For the current year and last year we may only be able to issue certificates for events registered in the Western Isles. For other areas, you may need to contact the office where the event was registered, but we can confirm this if you contact us.

Adoption Certificates

If you were adopted in Scotland and want a copy of your adopted birth certificate, you will need to contact National Records of Scotland, Adoption Section (Opens in a new window or downloads a file)

Fees for Certificates

The fee is £10 for events registered in the last month and £15 after that.

If you are ordering more than one copy of the same certificate at the same time a month or more after registration, only the first one is £15 - any additional ones are still £10 each.

Payment can be made online (or by phone) once we have confirmed that we can fulfil your request and what the fee will be. If you prefer another method of payment please let us know.

Certificates will normally be posted by second class post.