Normally, domestic cats do not have birth certificates but if you want one you can get one online. However, normally it won’t carry any formal or legal significance but it might please you for sentimental reasons. It would be a ‘keepsake birth certificate’.
If you buy a purebred cat from a breeder she will no doubt provide you with a date of birth but I don’t think that it will be in the form of a birth certificate. Of course, she will also provide you with a pedigree and other documentation relating to the contract and vaccinations et cetera.
If you adopt a cat from a rescue center and if they know the date of birth of the cat they may well and probably will provide it as part of the cat’s documentation at adoption but the document probably won’t be described as a birth certificate.
When I adopted my cat from a rescue center I received papers within which there was a record of my cat’s date of birth. This may have been an estimated date because my cat was rescued from someone’s back garden. Therefore, they would not know the exact date of birth.
The date of birth of a significant percentage of all domestic cats is unknown for one reason or another. Here is an example why. A cat owner might not have spayed or neutered her female and male cats. They breed. She looks after the kittens for a while and then perhaps after about a year decides to give them away to friends and neighbors. It is probable that she would not have recorded the date of birth. The adopter probably would not ask for a date of birth either.
The date of birth of a domestic cat is not important in the legal sense as is the case for humans. However, the data of birth is useful (but not legally required) in terms of when to socialize a cat and when to administer vaccinations during the time he or she is a kitten.
The top website that Google finds in its search in answer to the question “Do cats have birth certificates?” says that cat birth certificates do exist. Yes, they do exist if the owner wants one but there is no legal requirement for it. They say that in some cities you need a birth certificate for your cat together with identification documentation before they’ll issue a license. This perhaps applies more to therapy cats.
However, the licensing of cats is, at the date of this article, almost unheard of. It is a growing idea and some rare cities may have an ordinance requiring licensing of cats but I can’t remember one. Australia leads in this field. Therapy cats and dogs are a different kettle of fish. They are working animals and there may be different requirements. They are quite rare though and often their date of birth will be unknown.
In conclusion, the vast majority of cats do not have birth certificates unless you want one for sentimental reasons provided of course you know the true date of birth of your adopted cat. This may be a challenge. A lot of cats have a record of their date of birth but not in the form of a certificate.
