Alabama Adoption Records: Getting Your Original Birth Certificate and What Stays Sealed

Alabama is one of a small number of states where an adult adoptee can get their original, pre-adoption birth certificate simply by asking for it. Under Code of Alabama § 22-9A-12, anyone born in Alabama who was adopted, and who is now at least 19 years old, may request a copy of that sealed original record from the state, without going to court first.

That single fact, no court order, drives most of what an Alabama adoptee needs to know: the age threshold that applies, the form and fee involved, what happens to the underlying adoption court file, and how to reach the separate channels Alabama runs for background and identifying information.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Can an Adult Adoptee Get an Original Birth Certificate in Alabama?

Yes. Alabama removed its court-order requirement for adult adoptees under Act 2000-794, and current law states that any person 19 years of age or older who was born in the State of Alabama, and who is the subject of a final decree of adoption, may, upon written request, receive a copy of that birth certificate and any evidence of the adoption (Ala. Code § 22-9A-12).

The 19-year threshold is worth flagging on its own. Most states that allow direct adoptee access use 18. Alabama's statute sets the bar one year higher, so an 18-year-old Alabama-born adoptee who has already reached legal adulthood elsewhere still has to wait until their 19th birthday to request the record.

Subsection (d) of the same statute gives a birth parent the option to file a contact preference form, which is kept in a sealed envelope alongside the adoptee's file. That form communicates whether the birth parent is open to contact and how. It is optional, and Alabama's statute does not give it any power to block, delay, or condition release of the original birth certificate itself. Alabama's compromise, such as it is, is informational rather than a gate.

How to Request Your Original Birth Certificate

The request runs through the Alabama Center for Health Statistics, part of the Alabama Department of Public Health, using Form HS95 (Request for a Pre-Adoption or Other Birth Certificate from an Alabama Sealed File). There is no online ordering option for this record. The completed form or letter needs an original signature and goes by mail.

The processing fee is $25, non-refundable, payable to the Center for Health Statistics, with an additional $15 available for expedited handling. As of August 2026, mail requests go to Center for Health Statistics, Attn: Adoptions, P.O. Box 5625, Montgomery, AL 36103-5625. Questions can go to (334) 206-5426.

Valid identification has to go in the same envelope. ADPH will not process a sealed-file request without it, and the fee is not refunded if the request is rejected. The requirement is one current ID from the department's Primary list, expired by no more than 60 days: an Alabama or out-of-state driver's license, a state-issued non-driver ID, a U.S. or foreign passport, a certificate of naturalization or citizenship, a U.S. military ID, and several others.

An applicant who cannot produce a primary ID may send two different documents from the Secondary list instead, such as an expired government-issued ID, a utility bill less than six months old, a vehicle registration or title, a property tax bill, a DD Form 214, a voter registration card, or a health insurance card. If you name someone else on the form to receive the sealed file, both you and that person have to provide acceptable identification.

The Sealed Adoption Court File

Separate from the birth certificate itself, Alabama seals the underlying adoption case file. Code of Alabama § 26-10E-30 provides that after final judgment of adoption, all papers, pleadings, and other documents pertaining to the adoption shall be sealed, kept as a permanent record of the court, and withheld from inspection.

The same section supplies the standard for getting back in. Under § 26-10E-30(a), the records are open to other persons only upon order of court for good cause shown, and § 26-10E-30(c)a. repeats that no individual may access them except upon order of the court that entered the final judgment of adoption, again for good cause shown. A narrower companion provision, § 26-10E-3(f), applies the same good-cause standard to the filings a juvenile court keeps after an adoption case was transferred to it, which is a situation most adoptees will never encounter.

One narrower ask is available without meeting the good-cause standard. Under § 26-10E-30(c)b., the adoptive parents, their attorney of record, or the adoptee upon reaching the age of majority may petition the court for a hearing to obtain a copy of the final judgment or interlocutory order of adoption. In practice, though, most adult adoptees never need to open the court file at all, since the birth certificate itself, along with any evidence of the adoption released with it, is available on request once they turn 19.

Non-Identifying Information

Alabama does run a separate channel for non-identifying background information, and it is not the HS95 sealed-file request. Under Code of Alabama § 26-10E-30(g), the Alabama Department of Human Resources, or the licensed investigating agency the court appointed in the case, shall furnish this information upon request to the petitioner or petitioners, the biological parents, or an adoptee 19 years of age or older.

That distinction matters most to anyone looking for family medical history. ADPH's own guidance on the sealed file warns that those files usually do not contain medical or other information about the birth parents, unless a birth parent happened to file a Contact Preference and Medical History Form. The § 26-10E-30(g) request goes to a different custodian, and supplying the information is mandatory rather than incidental.

The statute limits the disclosure to six categories:

• The health and medical histories of the adoptee's biological parents
• The health and medical history of the adoptee
• The adoptee's general family background, including ancestral information, without name references or geographical designations
• Physical descriptions of the adoptee's biological parents
• The length of time the adoptee was in the care and custody of anyone other than the adoptive petitioner
• The circumstances under which the adoptee came to be placed for adoption

Requests go to the Department of Human Resources, or to the licensed child-placing agency that handled the adoption if one was involved. Under § 26-10E-30(e), those adoption records are kept for a minimum of 75 years, and an agency that stops operating in Alabama has to transfer its records to the state department, so the file is usually still retrievable decades after the fact.

No State Reunion Registry

Alabama does not maintain a mutual-consent adoption reunion registry or a standing confidential-intermediary program of the kind found in some other states. Alabama does have a Putative Father Registry (Code of Alabama § 26-10C-1), but that registry exists to give unmarried biological fathers a way to preserve their parental rights before an adoption is finalized. It has nothing to do with post-adoption reunion searches and cannot be used to locate a birth parent or relative.

The absence of a standing program is not the same as the absence of a route. Section 26-10E-30 sets out three case-by-case mechanisms for information the birth certificate does not carry:

• Consent already on file. If the legal mother or the putative or legal father gave written consent under oath, before the adoption, to disclosure of identifying information, then the Department of Human Resources or a licensed child-placing agency shall release that identifying information under § 26-10E-30(h). This is a request to the agency, not a court case.
• Petition at 19. Where no such consent exists, an adoptee who has turned 19 may petition the court for identifying information under § 26-10E-30(j). The court directs an intermediary to contact the former parents to determine whether they will consent. If they consent, the court orders release. If they are deceased, cannot be found, or refuse, the court weighs the interests and rights of all parties and may order release anyway.
• Compelling need. Under § 26-10E-30(i), a court that finds a compelling need for non-identifying information not otherwise available may direct the agency or a mutually agreed intermediary to make contact and gather it. The information is filed with the court and released at the court's discretion, and the identity and whereabouts of anyone contacted stay confidential.

So Alabama's intermediary is court-directed and case-specific rather than a program a person signs up for. For an adoptee, the § 26-10E-30(j) petition is the only route to identifying information beyond what the original birth certificate itself shows.

Related Alabama Records

An Alabama adoption search sometimes touches other public-records questions. See Alabama death records for locating a deceased birth parent's record, Alabama court records for how sealed adoption files fit into the state's broader court-records rules, and Alabama marriage and divorce records for tracing a name change. For the difference between an original birth certificate and a standard, non-adoption birth certificate, see are birth certificates public records.

For the national picture, including how the four access models work and what to expect from the process, see how to get your original birth certificate. For search strategy once you have identifying information in hand, see how to find birth parents. For how reunion registries work in states that run one, see adoption reunion registries.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about Alabama adoption-records law. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Fees, forms, and office contact information change; verify current details with the Alabama Center for Health Statistics or a licensed Alabama attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation. Locating a birth relative, once identifying information is available, is not guaranteed to succeed or to lead to contact.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and forms reflect their published status as of August 2026.