Surrogacy in United States: the complete guide to law, process, cost and contract

Where surrogacy is legal

This jurisdiction sets the rules below the national level, so whether surrogacy is open depends on where you go. The states named here are taken from the same sources as the positions below.

The process, stage by stage

A surrogacy programme is a run of separate stages, not one decision. The order shifts with the destination and with whether you need donated eggs or sperm. The full walkthrough, with the questions each stage raises:

1. 1

   Set out your own situation

   Your medical, legal and financial facts come first, because they decide which destinations are open to you at all.

2. 2

   Choose a destination before a clinic

   The place is chosen on legal grounds, before any money moves. The legal-considerations guide lists what to confirm.

3. 3

   Screening, both ways

   Your fertility work-up and the carrier’s medical and psychological screening. FIGO’s position is that psychological screening and ongoing support should be mandatory.

4. 4

   Matching

   How a programme pairs you with a carrier is where marketed and delivered service differ most. Ask in writing what happens if a match is not reached.

5. 5

   The agreement, and the money behind it

   Before treatment, the arrangement is set down in writing and should carry the funds, not just point at them. Escrow is usually funded before the first transfer.

6. 6

   Treatment and transfer

   Medication and monitoring, then the embryo transfer. From here the timeline is no longer yours: clinic schedule and the carrier’s cycle decide.

7. 7

   Pregnancy

   Prenatal care is the obstetrician’s. What you pay for, and who decides, are contract questions that should already be settled.

8. 8

   Birth and parentage

   The parentage path decides what happens in the delivery room and after. Only a lawyer in that jurisdiction can say which path applies to you.

9. 9

   Bringing the child home

   Registration, passport or consular documents, and whatever your home country requires. Cross-border parents are not rare: a third of US surrogate transfers involved them.

Cost figures published for this destination

Each number below is one a named source published, in that source's own currency, for the year stated. It is a published figure with a citation rather than a quote, and the source that printed it is linked from the row.

The contract is the legal core

Before any treatment begins, the arrangement should be written down and should carry the money, not merely point at it. What every contract must cover, and the clauses worth insisting on:

Choosing an agency

The agency is the one party whose incentives are not yours by default. We do not name agencies on this site: what follows is how to ask, and how to judge whether an agency is sound, before you sign.

Questions people ask

Is surrogacy legal everywhere?

No. It ranges from explicitly permitted to prohibited, and within federal countries it varies by state or province. The legal basis for each destination is set out at the top of this page, with its source and the date it was checked.

Can intended parents from another country use this route?

It depends on the destination. The "intended parents from abroad" cell in the summary strip above says whether the sources behind this record admit foreign commissioning parents, and the admissions section below names the family types each rule opens to.

When is parentage settled?

That is the single biggest planning difference between systems. Some name an intended parent at birth; others treat the woman who gives birth as the legal mother until a court moves parentage afterwards. Which one applies to you only a lawyer in that jurisdiction can say.

What does the price usually include?

A programme price is built from several lines, and scope matters more than the headline total. The figures a source has published for this destination are in the cost table above, and the full breakdown of what a quote usually leaves out is in the cost guide.

Do I have to travel there myself?

Usually, yes, at least for some steps. Signing before treatment, attending a court or registrar, collecting documents and staying after the birth are separate requirements that often come from clinic practice and the court rather than the statute. How many trips you can make often narrows the field before cost does.

Is there an average surrogacy cost?

No single figure applies. The total depends on the destination, on what the programme includes, and on what a quote leaves out, so an average would hide the differences that decide whether a plan is feasible. The per-line figures on this page and the cost guide show why.

How does the child come home?

Birth registration, a passport or consular documents, and whatever your home country requires to recognise the arrangement. The steps differ by where the child is born and where you live, and the documents guide walks through them.

What each position rests on

• Each state has its own laws about whether surrogacy is permitted and how it is regulated; there is no federal framework.

  US Surrogacy Laws (resource page) · National Center for Lesbian Rights , checked Oct 14, 2026

• Gestational surrogacy is expressly permitted by statute in the 21 states listed above, while several states have no statutes or published case law specifically permitting or prohibiting it.

  Surrogacy by State (legal survey) · American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Legal Professional Group , checked Oct 14, 2026

• In Indiana and Nebraska gestational carrier contracts are unenforceable and against public policy, and Arizona residents are prohibited from entering into gestational carrier contracts.

  Legal and regulatory considerations for gestational surrogacy in the United States · Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics 41(11):3013-3037, Herweck, Manvelyan et al. , checked Oct 14, 2026

• Louisiana restricts surrogacy agreements to married heterosexual genetic intended parents, and Arizona contracts are described as statutorily unenforceable.

  Surrogacy by State (legal survey) · American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Legal Professional Group , checked Oct 14, 2026

• A peer-reviewed overview reports, citing Tsai and colleagues (Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2020), that in the United States a programme usually includes 20,000 to 80,000 US dollars of medical expenses, 3,000 to 15,000 dollars of legal support and 6,000 to 54,000 dollars for surrogacy recruiting programmes; that a gestational carrier usually receives 20,000 to 55,000 dollars per pregnancy; and that a complete process may cost as much as 200,000 dollars.

  Commercial Surrogacy: An Overview (review article) · RBGO Gynecology & Obstetrics 44(12):1141, Brandão and Garrido , checked Oct 17, 2026