What we are talking about
A woman carries a child for a couple or a person who will raise them. Gestational surrogacy, in which the surrogate has no genetic link to the child, now accounts for almost every case; traditional surrogacy, using the surrogate's own egg, has become rare because it is legally messier and harder for surrogates.
The second and more important division is between altruistic surrogacy, where only real expenses are reimbursed, and commercial surrogacy, where the surrogate is paid. Almost every country that permits the practice permits only the first; a handful allow the second, and that is where cross-border surrogacy goes.
Three regimes worldwide
| Prohibition | The agreement is void and sometimes criminal. This covers most of continental Europe, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland. |
|---|---|
| Regulated altruistic surrogacy | Permitted without payment, often restricted to residents and subject to approval by a committee or a court: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Israel. |
| Commercial surrogacy | Paid contract, with the intended parents' parentage established at birth or by a pre-birth order: several US states, Georgia, parts of Mexico, and Ukraine for married heterosexual couples. |
Where it is actually possible for foreigners
- United States. Legally the safest and the most expensive. The law is that of each state: California, Nevada, Illinois, Connecticut and others grant a pre-birth parentage order naming the intended parents directly on the birth certificate. The child is born a US citizen.
- Canada. Altruistic only — paying a surrogate is a federal offence under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Open to foreigners, heavily oversubscribed, therefore slow.
- Georgia. Long the main low-cost destination, restricted to married heterosexual couples; the government has repeatedly announced its intention to close surrogacy to foreigners, and the framework is unstable.
- Ukraine. A framework favourable to intended parents, restricted to married heterosexual couples with a medical indication; the war has made it practically very risky.
- Mexico, Colombia, Argentina. Shifting positions built more on case law than on clear statutes, with several jurisdictions restricting access for foreigners.
- United Kingdom, Greece, Portugal. Altruistic surrogacy; Greece admits some non-residents on conditions, the UK expects residence and a post-birth parental order.
A list that changes every year
Nepal, India, Thailand and Cambodia were each, in turn, major destinations before closing abruptly, sometimes leaving children stranded. Do not commit without checking the position at the date of travel with your own country's embassy.
What it costs
All-in ranges — agency, clinic, surrogate compensation, insurance, legal fees and travel: $100,000 to $200,000 in the United States, $60,000 to $100,000 in Canada, €40,000 to €70,000 in Georgia or Ukraine. Add several thousand more for the procedure at home afterwards, and sometimes several years.
The real problem: recognition when you get home
- The genetic parent. In Mennesson and Labassee, decided on 26 June 2014, the European Court of Human Rights held that a state cannot refuse to recognise the legal parentage of a child's biological father without breaching the child's right to respect for private life. That much is settled in Europe.
- The non-genetic intended parent. This is the hard part. In its advisory opinion of 10 April 2019 the Court said the state must provide a route to recognition but may choose which one — and step-parent adoption is an acceptable route. In other words: no automatic transcription, but an obligation to provide a workable path.
- In practice that means partial recognition of the foreign certificate followed by an adoption taking one to three years, during which one of the two parents has no legal status at all: no parental responsibility, no power to act for the child, no inheritance.
The United Kingdom works differently: the surrogate is the legal mother at birth whatever the agreement says, and the intended parents must apply for a parental order within six months. That order is the only route, and it requires that no more than reasonable expenses have been paid — a condition the courts have in practice been willing to authorise retrospectively in the child's interests.
The practical difficulties, in the order they arrive
- Leaving the country of birth. The child needs a travel document, and the consulate may refuse if it considers parentage unestablished. Families have been stuck for months at this stage.
- Registering the birth at home. Expect scrutiny and, in several countries, partial recognition only. Instruct a specialist lawyer before departure, not after.
- Establishing the second parent's status, usually by step-parent adoption, which in some countries requires marriage.
- Nationality, which follows parentage; while parentage is established with one parent only, the child's administrative position can be precarious.
- Death or separation before the process ends — rare but devastating, because the child may be left with no legal parent at all.
Warning signs before committing
- An agency promising a fixed timescale or a "baby guarantee".
- No separate written agreement with the surrogate, or no possibility of meeting her.
- No specific medical insurance covering pregnancy complications and delivery.
- A country where the statute says nothing and everything rests on "how the courts do it".
- An intermediary who discourages you from consulting a lawyer at home.
And the surrogate
Public debate focuses on intended parents; the women who carry these children appear rarely. The questions that matter to them are specific: free consent, which presupposes she is not economically dependent on the fee; real medical follow-up, including after birth; the right to decide about medical interventions on her own body during pregnancy; and what happens if the child is born disabled or the intended parents separate. The most protective frameworks — Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel — are precisely those that ban payment and impose heavy regulation.
Male couples
For two men, surrogacy is the only biological route. That changes nothing in the applicable law — a prohibition or a framework targets the practice, not the orientation of the intended parents — but it shifts the problem onto three fronts.
- Access to foreign schemes: several countries that regulate surrogacy reserve it to a couple formed of a man and a woman, or require a genetic link with both intended parents, a condition a male couple cannot meet.
- Establishing parentage for the second father, who has no genetic link to the child. Where full transcription is refused, the only route is step-parent adoption — which assumes a recognised marriage and a procedure lasting months during which the child legally has one parent.
- The return: issuing the child's travel documents depends on the destination country recognising the parentage, and that is where most cases stall.