The news in brief
EPI-PHARE, a public scientific group run by the French medicines agency (ANSM) and the national health insurance fund, updated its review of vasectomy in France on 27 August 2026: 46,826 vasectomies in 2023, 53,955 in 2024 and 57,666 in 2025. These are reimbursement data, which describe procedures rather than motivations.
What the EPI-PHARE review says
EPI-PHARE, the public scientific group of the ANSM and the national health insurance fund, published on 27 August 2026 a note covering 2010 to 2025, which extends a first report that stopped in 2022 (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
The method relies on the national health data system. The authors extracted all reimbursed vasectomy procedures in men aged 18 to 70, across all health insurance schemes, then described each year the age, the département, the social level of the municipality of residence and the care surrounding the procedure (EPI-PHARE, 2026). This is a description, not a search for causes.
The authors recall the context: between 2012 and 2022, the share of the combined pill among contraception users fell from 54% to 35%, while the copper IUD rose from 12% to 21% (Poncet et al., 2025). For EPI-PHARE, vasectomy, legal since 2001, is to be read alongside these changes, since it often replaces another method in the couple.
The figures to remember
Over the sixteen years, 275,683 vasectomies were performed (EPI-PHARE, 2026). There were 2,150 in 2010, or 11 per 100,000 men aged 20 to 70, then 32,172 in 2022, or 158 per 100,000 (EPI-PHARE, 2026). The rise continues afterwards, with 46,826 procedures in 2023 and 53,955 in 2024, and reaches 57,666 in 2025, or 280 per 100,000. The incidence has therefore been multiplied by 1.8 since 2022 (EPI-PHARE, 2026). Growth is slowing, however: plus 46% between 2022 and 2023, plus about 7% between 2024 and 2025 (calculation based on EPI-PHARE, 2026).
The median age at the time of the procedure has fallen, from 43 in 2010 to 40 since 2021, half of the men being between 37 and 45 (EPI-PHARE, 2026). Men in their thirties make up 42.8% of those operated on in 2025, against 24.5% in 2010 (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
In 2025, the highest age-standardised rates are seen in Vendée, with 578 per 100,000, in Loire-Atlantique, with 573, and in Maine-et-Loire, with 565. The overseas territories and Île-de-France are around 100 per 100,000, or below (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
The social gaps are more subtle. Only 2.5% of the men operated on had the solidarity supplementary health insurance, far less than its share in the population (EPI-PHARE, 2026). Among five groups of municipalities of equal size, the most advantaged provides 17.8% of the men operated on and the most disadvantaged 15.5%, whereas 20% each would be expected (EPI-PHARE, 2026). The authors conclude that the middle classes are the most concerned, which qualifies the first report.
As for the care pathway, 74% of men had the recommended follow-up semen analysis over the whole period, a share that rose from 57.9% in 2010 to 76.6% in 2024 (EPI-PHARE, 2026). But the median delay is 8.4 months, whereas the recommendations mention three months (EPI-PHARE, 2026). In addition, 7.5% stored gametes before or after, reversal procedures remain marginal, at 0.2%, and a repeat surgery coded as the same procedure concerns 0.9% of men (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
How to read these results
These reimbursement data describe procedures, not motivations or personal experiences. The authors say so themselves: the reasons for this change remain to be studied through dedicated sociological surveys (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
Several limits follow from this method. Painkillers dispensed between three and twelve months after the procedure are not necessarily linked to the vasectomy, and the report specifies this. The 2025 figure for the semen analysis, 71.2%, is lower than the previous ones, probably for lack of hindsight on those operated on late in the year, a hypothesis of our own. And a repeat or reversal rate is not a measure of regret, which these data do not allow us to assess.
The previous report gave 1,940 vasectomies in 2010 and 30,288 in 2022, against 2,150 and 32,172 in this update (EPI-PHARE, 2024; EPI-PHARE, 2026). The two series therefore do not line up, and the note does not explain the gap. Finally, a national trend says nothing about a particular couple.
France is rising while the worldwide trend is falling, the authors point out, without explaining it (EPI-PHARE, 2026).
What this changes for the reader
Vasectomy has become, in a few years, a common contraceptive option in France. For a couple thinking about it, knowing that more than fifty thousand men chose it in 2025 may take some of the drama out of the question, without making it a norm.
The follow-up also gives a practical benchmark. The semen analysis, which confirms the effect of the procedure, is often done much later than planned. The arrangements are to be discussed with the urologist.
Finally, the disparities raise a question of access to information and consultations. Personal choices, the supply of care or something else: the note does not decide.
What our main page adds
Our main page adds what the figures do not say. It compares vasectomy with tubal sterilisation: fifteen to twenty minutes under local anaesthetic on one side, surgery under general anaesthetic on the other, and a failure rate of about one in two thousand for the former, once the absence of sperm has been confirmed. It details the French pathway, two consultations separated by four months of reflection, an effect that appears only after about three months and some twenty ejaculations, then a follow-up semen analysis. It dismantles three common beliefs: it is not castration, it is not major surgery, and it cannot always be undone. Lastly, it recalls that regret is uncommon but more likely after a decision taken young or in the middle of a crisis. A vasectomy is decided calmly, with a health professional. See the page on sterilisation.
Going further
This news item is part of a broader topic, which our page Sterilisation covers in detail.