Local offices and other services

Kent County Council is responsible for all births, death, marriages and civil partnerships that take place within the Kent registration district. (This excludes Medway where there are separate arrangements, please contact Medway Council.)

The main Register Office for the county is at the Archbishops Palace in Maidstone, but there are also 5 other main offices each providing a full range of birth, death and ceremony facilities. In addition, there are a number of part-time registration outstations which provide facilities for birth and death registrations, and in some cases marriages and civil partnerships (on certain days of the week and by appointment).

Kent County Council also licenses a large number of venues across the county for the solemnisation of civil marriages, the registration of civil partnerships and the celebration of baby welcoming and renewal of vows. These include castles, stately homes, manor houses, town and country hotels, restaurants, zoo and animal parks, restaurants, civic halls and garden gazebos. For further information visit our ceremonies page.

Couples and parents having a ceremony either at a Registration Office or at one of the county council's licensed venues, may have a "Kentish Ceremony" which enables them to personalise their own ceremony with music, poetry and prose readings, messages and involvement from family and friends, and their own vows and declarations to each other

Staff at Registration Offices will also be pleased to help with any enquiry concerning the registration of births, deaths and marriages. They can provide copies of certificates of births, deaths and marriages registered since 1837. For more information on certificates provided and the fees charged for these view our apply for certificates page.