Surrogacy by Country

Surrogacy in Belgium is not regulated by law, but is actively practiced. Belgium is one of the countries where surrogacy is not regulated at the legislative level. There are no specific regulations that would prohibit or allow the use of the services of surrogate mothers.

In most European countries, surrogacy is prohibited. In some countries, violation of the law in this area entails serious punishment (in Austria, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Estonia).

For the first time, surrogacy in the Czech Republic received its legitimization relatively recently, in 2014, after the adoption of the new Civil Code of the Czech Republic.

Surrogacy in Switzerland is strictly prohibited by law. On January 1, 2001, Switzerland adopted the Law on Assisted Reproductive Technologies, which is one of the toughest in the world.

Due to legislation, surrogate motherhood is currently illegal in Singapore. The MOH has released a directive that prohibits surrogacy services, and any AR centre found to be doing so can have its license suspended or revoked.

In 2016, surrogacy was legalized in Portugal. Discussions on the adoption of this law lasted more than 3 years. The first version of the law was adopted May 13, 2016, but the president vetoed it.

Nowadays there is a tendency against surrogacy. For example, it’s not legal in Ireland. The Government of the country made attempts to work out special legislative base regulating surrogacy in Ireland but they were not completely successful.

For a long period of time hundreds of infertile couples found their surrogacy happiness in Thailand. But several world-scandal surrogacy journeys made the government of the country review the legal aspects of surrogacy in Thailand which has resulted in ban of the commercial surrogacy for foreigners.

Each year surrogate motherhood becomes more and more popular kind of infertility treatment but on a proper level surrogacy process is debugged only in few countries e.g. Ukraine, the USA, Georgia, Israel etc.

Italian legislation towards the usage of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) is one of the most conservative among the European countries. According to the Law №40 from 19.02.2004 “About the Norms of Assisted Reproductive Technologies”, not just surrogacy in Italy is completely prohibited but other kinds of reproductive technologies (egg and sperm donation, embryo investigation and freezing) are strictly limited.