How to Get a Death Certificate in South Carolina
From Everendium · Last reviewed October 17, 2026
This guide covers South Carolina. For the general overview, see Getting Death Certificates: How Many You'll Need and Why.
Quick answer
In South Carolina, certified death certificates are issued by the South Carolina Department of Public Health's Vital Records office in Columbia and its local and regional vital records offices. A certified copy costs $12, a non-refundable search fee that includes one copy and takes about four weeks. An expedited $17 option brings processing to five business days or less. Each additional copy ordered at the same time costs $3. Online orders add a vendor fee of about $8.70 to $8.75.
Getting a death certificate is one of the first practical steps after a death in South Carolina, and the details of who issues it and what it costs are specific to South Carolina.
Who issues death certificates in South Carolina?
Certified copies come from the South Carolina Department of Public Health’s Vital Records office in Columbia and its local and regional vital records offices. In practice, the funeral home usually files the certificate and orders an initial batch of certified copies for you.
How much does a certified copy cost in South Carolina?
A certified copy costs $12, a non-refundable search fee that includes one copy and takes about four weeks. An expedited $17 option brings processing to five business days or less. Each additional copy ordered at the same time costs $3. Online orders add a vendor fee of about $8.70 to $8.75.
Who can order a copy in South Carolina?
Only an immediate family member, or the legal representative of an immediate family member, can get a certified copy. Other applicants can be given a statement that the death occurred, with the date and county, but not a certified copy.
How do I order more copies in South Carolina?
- In person: at a local or regional DPH vital records office, or the State Vital Records Office in Columbia, where you can also pick up a copy you ordered by mail.
- Online: only through the two vendors the state approves, VitalChek and GoCertificates, each with its own vendor fee.
- By mail: with a money order or cashier’s check payable to S.C. DPH.
What else should I know before I order?
DPH has reported longer than usual processing times since REAL ID implementation, so allow extra time or choose the expedited option if you are in a hurry.
What should I do next?
Confirm with the funeral home how many copies it is ordering for you, then decide how many more you need; see how many death certificates you need in South Carolina and our general guide to death certificates.
Add this to your Final Day Plan: your Social Security number, birthplace, and parents’ full names - the death certificate application asks for these, and they’re often surprisingly hard for a family to track down under pressure.
Fees and rules change - confirm current details with the South Carolina Department of Public Health before you send payment.
Sources
About this review
Everendium Editorial Team · last reviewed October 17, 2026.
Fees, eligibility rules, and ordering options were checked on October 17, 2026 against the state's own published fee information, application forms, and county government pages listed in the sources. Death certificate fees change often, and some official pages were read only as search extracts, so the current fee should be confirmed on the agency's page before paying. Recommended for periodic re-verification. This is general information, not legal advice
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