Empowered Homefront

Your choices

The law allows each choice below. Read what each one covers.

An exemption is a paper that says a shot rule does not apply to this person.

Before you decide: what each shot is for, and your rights

Choice 1. Religious exemption
The state says
The law excuses a child for religious convictions.The state calls this a nonmedical waiver.Only your county health department can give the certified waiver.First you take its short lesson on shots and disease.Some counties let you take the lesson online.You may still need to go in to sign the waiver.A letter you write yourself is not accepted.
You do
1.Call your county health department.2.Ask for the immunization waiver education.3.Get the certified State of Michigan waiver from that office.4.Give it to the school or child care. Do not mark on it.
The paper
certified State of Michigan Nonmedical Immunization Waiver, form DCH-0716. The county health department issues it. Finish the state's education class first. It does not expire.
Source. legislature.mi.gov, michigan.gov, npr.org
Get the state form
Choice 2. Personal belief exemption
The state says
The same law also covers any other objection to shots.So one waiver serves religious and personal reasons alike.The state's form covers religious reasons.It also covers philosophical and other reasons.The steps are the same.The county health department teaches the lesson, then certifies the waiver.
You do
1.Call your county health department.2.Take the waiver education.3.Get the certified waiver from that office.4.Give the certified form itself, with nothing marked on it, to the school or child care. Keep a copy for yourself.
The paper
certified State of Michigan Nonmedical Immunization Waiver, form DCH-0716. The county health department issues it. Finish the state's education class first. It does not expire.
Choice 3. The shot record
You do
1.Ask the doctor's office or the health department for a copy.2.Put one copy for each student in your folder.
The paper
The shot record from the doctor's office or the health department.
Choice 4. Medical exemption
The state says
A doctor can excuse a child from a certain shot.The doctor says the shot is or may be harmful to the child.Or the doctor says it is not medically right for the child.The state takes only its own form, DCH-0713.A doctor's letter is not accepted.The form lasts until the end date the doctor writes on it.
You do
1.Ask the child's doctor, an MD or DO, to fill in form DCH-0713.2.Make sure it names each shot and the reason.3.Make sure it has the end date.4.Give the signed form to the school, preschool or child care.
The paper
DCH-0713 Medical Exemption (2026 edition, revised 1-26). The state publishes the form. How long it lasts: The end date the physician writes on the form. Open the form

Everywhere in America

Where a shot record actually gets asked for, and where it does not.

School enrollment: Enrolling a child in a school, public, private or religious, means handing that school an immunization certificate or an exemption, because each state writes its own school rule.
Licensed daycare and preschool: A state's school rule usually reaches licensed child care too, and the word that decides it is licensed. A drop in nursery or a parents day out below the licensing line is usually outside it.
Club and recreation sports: A club asks for age, fees and a sports physical. The playing rules US Youth Soccer publishes carry no immunization condition, and neither do Little League's published eligibility rules. A shot rule turns up when the venue does it: a school gym, a hospital, a licensed camp.
Scouting: Scouting America's annual health form asks for a tetanus shot within the last 10 years, and Scouting America publishes an immunization exemption request form for families who decline.
Summer camp: A camp accredited by the American Camp Association has to collect a health history from every camper, and the association's own guidance says a signed refusal counts as the record.
Dual enrollment: A community college course, and coursework taken online, often sits outside a state's college immunization law. North Carolina and Texas both write that exclusion into their own statutes.
Living on campus: Both of those statutes are written around the student who is on campus full time, so the moment to plan for is the first full time semester on a campus.
Enlisting: Nobody is turned away from enlistment for being unvaccinated. Recruits are immunized by the military in their first days of basic training.
Healthcare training: A nursing or allied health student can be admitted to the program and still be blocked from the clinical hours, because the clinical site, not the college, decides which exemptions it accepts.
Travel abroad: Some countries ask for proof of yellow fever vaccination on an international certificate before letting a traveler in. A doctor can write a medical waiver on that certificate, and the destination country may or may not accept it.

State Setup & Compliance

Michigan

Your choices

Choice 1. Religious exemption

Choice 2. Personal belief exemption

Choice 3. The shot record

Choice 4. Medical exemption

Good to know