The National Records of Scotland (NRS), which holds many key family history records for Scotland, has opened a public consultation on proposed increases to its fees.
The NRS’ record collections, available on its website ScotlandsPeople, include Scottish civil birth, marriage and death records, church records and census records.
In the consultation paper Alison Byrne, Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for Scotland, says that the fee increases are needed so that NRS can “provide these services in a fiscally sustainable way” following increases in inflation.
Last year, the General Regulatory Chamber ruled in favour of leading family history website Ancestry in a legal bid to access the NRS records. The NRS warned at the time that the request, which is still subject to litigation, would cost over £560,000 and have a “catastrophic” effect on its financial sustainability.
ScotlandsPeople currently offers access to the digitised records in exchange for credits. The minimum cost is £7.50 for a bundle of 30 credits, equivalent to five record images.
Under the proposed changes, the minimum price would be £12.50 for 50 credits. However, the bundle would still only cover five images, raising the cost of an image from six credits to ten or from £1.50 to £2.50.
Other proposed changes are increasing the cost of requesting a record search from NRS staff from £5 to £8, and the cost of an in-person search at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh from £15 to £23. The proposals also include a new half-day search option costing £11.50.
The changes would also increase the cost of entering notice of a marriage or civil partnership in Scotland from £45 per person to £57.
The consultation on the changes is open until 4 October 2026.
