Dakota County Newsletter - Fall/Winter 2024 - Providing Licenses and Certificates

PROVIDING LICENSES AND CERTIFICATES

Counties are responsible for providing important documents for life’s most important moments — birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates and more. These are available at our service and license centers.

We provide birth and death certificates, and we make the process convenient by offering them at five locations — Administration Center, Northern Service Center and the Burnsville, Lakeville and Robert Trail license centers. We issued more than 10,600 birth and death certificates last year.

Getting married or officiating a marriage requires county filings. Marriage licenses and certificates are available at all three service centers and by mail.

About 6,000 people requested help with a marriage license or certificate at our service centers last year. Residents can also request a marriage certificate by mail.

We provide a convenient way to get driver’s licenses and passports. It’s not a mandated service, but we know it's popular. We issued about 49,500 driver's licenses last year.

Passports are available at the Administration Center in Hastings and the Western Service Center. Last year alone, we processed 13,100 passports. It’s more convenient to get your passport from the county than through a state office.

We also help people become a notary — someone commissioned by the state to witness document signings for legal, real estate and other purposes.

Our service centers processed 2,685 notary commissions in 2023.

We want your experience at a county service or license center to be positive. Our service software tracks results from customers. More than 10,000 people provided feedback last year, giving us an average rating of 4.6 out of 5. We’ll keep working to make the license and permit process efficient and convenient.