Whether you need the card
Most of the time the number is enough, and the card sits unused for years. A new employer or the motor vehicle office may ask to see it. Replacements are limited to three in a year and ten in a lifetime, not counting legal name changes. Once you have it, keep it out of your wallet.
Replacing the Social Security card
Replacement costs nothing. In most states an adult citizen with a driver's license or state ID, and no changes to make to the record, can request a card online through a personal my Social Security account on ssa.gov. Everyone else completes Form SS-5 and submits it to a local Social Security office with proof of identity, and with proof of citizenship if the agency does not already have it on file. The agency accepts only originals or copies certified by the office that issued them. It refuses photocopies and notarized copies. The card arrives by mail, usually within two weeks, and your documents are returned.
Replacing a birth certificate
Birth records are held by the state, and sometimes the county or city, where the birth took place. The National Center for Health Statistics, part of the CDC, publishes a directory called Where to Write for Vital Records that lists every state's office, fee and procedure.
- Order the certified copy, which bears a raised, embossed or multicolored seal, because agencies reject plain photocopies.
- Ask for the long-form version that lists your parents' names, since a passport application requires it.
- Send a copy of your photo ID, because most states release records only to the person named, a parent, or a legal representative.
- Expect a fee of roughly $10 to $35 per copy and a wait that runs from same-day service at the counter to several weeks by mail.
The keepsake certificate from the hospital, with the footprints, is not a legal document.
Special cases
If you have no photo ID and need the birth certificate to get one, the vital records office lists alternative documents it will accept, and a parent named on the record can usually order for you. A citizen born abroad to American parents replaces a Consular Report of Birth Abroad through the State Department. A naturalized citizen replaces a lost certificate through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a process that is slow and costs several hundred dollars, so guard the original.
Tip Order two or three certified copies at once. Passport and licensing offices sometimes keep one for weeks, and a spare saves you a second order.
