Surrogacy in Ukraine: The Illusion of Legal Protection

Countries where surrogacy is permitted

Over the past ten years, the number of countries where a foreigner can pay a woman to carry a child has fallen threefold. India closed its programs to foreigners with the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021, and Thailand ended them as early as 2015. Nepal, Cambodia and Laos introduced bans after cases of children whom the intended parents never collected.

Since December 2022, Russia has allowed surrogacy only for its own citizens (Federal Law No. 538-FZ). Italy's Law No. 169 of November 4, 2024 made surrogacy a crime for Italian citizens even when it takes place abroad, punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of up to one million euros.

As of November 2026, commercial surrogacy remains available to foreign couples in Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia, certain Mexican states and roughly twenty U.S. states. Georgia announced a ban for foreigners in 2023 but never enacted it, so clinics there continue their programs. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Israel and South Africa permit only altruistic, unpaid surrogacy, mostly for their own residents and subject to court approval of the agreement.

Of all these countries, Ukraine offers the simplest procedure: the civil registry office records the couple as parents on the birth certificate without a court decision, and no government body reviews the agreement with the surrogate. According to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in 2019 civil registry offices registered 1,499 births by surrogates, 1,418 of them for foreign couples.

Ukrainian legislation

The Family Code of Ukraine contains two provisions on surrogacy. If an embryo conceived by a married couple through assisted reproductive technology is transferred into another woman's body, the couple are the child's parents (Article 123(2) of the Family Code of Ukraine). The law does not allow maternity to be contested in this situation, so the surrogate cannot demand to be registered as the mother (Article 139(2) of the Family Code of Ukraine).

An adult woman is entitled to artificial insemination and embryo implantation on medical grounds and with the written consent of the spouses (Article 48 of the Fundamentals of the Legislation of Ukraine on Health Care). The requirements for the surrogate and the couple, and the list of documents for a program, are set out in Section VI of the Procedure for the Use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies, approved by Order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine No. 787 of September 9, 2013. The civil registry office records the couple as parents on the basis of their application, the surrogate's notarized consent and a certificate of genetic relationship (Clause 6.9 of Procedure No. 787; Clause 11, Chapter 1, Section III of the Rules for State Registration of Civil Status Acts in Ukraine).

None of these instruments mentions an agreement between the couple and the surrogate, defines the legal status of an embryo, or establishes liability for the parties to a program. As a result, the parties to the contract themselves decide who determines the fate of a fetus in a multiple pregnancy, what happens to embryos after a divorce or the death of a spouse, and what the clinic is responsible for. If the contract is silent, the court applies the general provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine on services to the relationship between the couple and the surrogate (Supreme Court, Civil Cassation Court, ruling of October 23, 2019, case No. 150/628/16-ts).

On May 3, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada rejected draft law No. 6475-d on assisted reproductive technologies and surrogacy. In August 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine introduced draft law No. 13683 on the same subject and withdrew it on July 16, 2026. Alternative draft law No. 13683-1 and draft laws No. 15506 and No. 15507, which a member of parliament registered on August 10, 2026, remain under review in parliamentary committees as of November 2026.

Who goes to court and what they ask for

Ukraine's Unified State Register of Court Decisions contains cases brought by every party to surrogacy programs: couples, surrogates, clinics, civil registry offices, social welfare authorities and prosecutors. The table summarizes cases from 2016 to 2026 that are discussed in more detail below.

Only one of these cases is a money claim by a couple against a surrogate, and it ended in dismissal. Far more often, couples sue the civil registry office, because that office decides whether the child receives documents.

The surrogacy agreement

Clinics and agencies fill the gap in the law with a contract in which the section on the surrogate's obligations is longer than all the other sections combined. The terms below summarize agreements used by several Ukrainian clinics in 2023–2025, without names or parties.

Compensation under these agreements consists of a monthly payment equivalent to EUR 450–620 during the pregnancy and a final payment of EUR 12,000 to 21,000 after the child is born and the documents are issued. The surrogate therefore receives most of the money only after she has performed her obligations. If she breaches the agreement during the pregnancy and the child is born, the couple can deduct the penalty from the final payment. If the breach causes the loss of the pregnancy, there is nothing left to deduct from, and the couple's only option is a lawsuit to recover the money the woman has already received.

These agreements tie every payment to an event that the clinic certifies: the onset of pregnancy, the week of gestation, the delivery. Before signing, the couple should therefore obtain a legal review of the agreements with the clinic, the agency and the surrogate and confirm who exactly is a party to each contract, who receives the money, and which acts or omissions of the clinic entitle the couple to a refund.

Why contractual penalties fail

Most of the surrogate's contractual obligations concern her body, and that is precisely where the contract has no force. An adult with full legal capacity who understands and can control her actions has the right to refuse medical treatment (Article 284(4) of the Civil Code of Ukraine). A physician may use a diagnostic or treatment method only with the informed consent of the patient, and if the patient refuses, the physician merely records the refusal in writing or in a report signed before witnesses (Article 43 of the Fundamentals of the Legislation of Ukraine on Health Care).

A consent to embryo reduction that the surrogate signed six months before the pregnancy does not replace her consent on the day of the procedure. On the day she refuses, the clinic has no right to perform it. Nor does a court have the power to order a woman to undergo an abortion, embryo reduction, amniocentesis or hospitalization.

Suppose that in the 24th week an ultrasound reveals a developmental abnormality in one of two fetuses and the physician recommends reduction. Under the agreement, the surrogate consented to this procedure in advance. If she confirms her consent, the clinic performs the reduction and the program continues as agreed. If she refuses, the clinic records the refusal and continues to manage the pregnancy, and the couple is left only with a claim for contractual penalties.

If the couple or the agency presses her in this situation, they risk a criminal investigation. The Criminal Code of Ukraine classifies forced pregnancy and forced termination of pregnancy as forms of human exploitation (Note 1 to Article 149 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). A person is in a vulnerable state when a combination of serious personal, family or other circumstances limits her ability to make decisions of her own free will (Note 2 to Article 149 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

In Ukraine, surrogates are mostly women for whom the program fee equals several years of income. A demand to terminate the pregnancy or undergo reduction, restrictions on movement and threats of penalties give such a woman grounds to report a criminal offense under Article 149 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine to the police. Courts have already heard such charges: a program coordinator, a lawyer and two interpreters of one clinic network in Kharkiv admitted recruiting vulnerable women into surrogacy by deception, and each received a five-year prison sentence suspended with probation (judgments of the Podilskyi District Court of Kyiv of August 13, 2024, case No. 756/15737/23, and of the Obolonskyi District Court of Kyiv of September 5, 2024, case No. 756/15734/23, and October 28, 2024, case No. 756/1293/24).

A criminal investigation also stalls the child's registration. In a case brought by the biological father and the surrogate, the Slavuta civil registry office refused to amend the birth records of twins, citing a criminal investigation under Article 149(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the need to prevent child trafficking. On August 11, 2021, the Khmelnytskyi District Administrative Court ordered the registry office to amend the records only after a forensic expert confirmed that the children were genetically related to the father (case No. 560/3998/21). A couple or an agency employee under such an investigation needs a defense in criminal proceedings, and until it ends, no one brings up contractual penalties.

Criminal liability of the surrogate

A surrogate faces legal liability when she takes the child or helps remove the child in a way that bypasses birth registration. That liability arises under the Criminal Code of Ukraine: for illegally moving persons across the state border (Article 332 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), for forging documents and for knowingly using a forged document (Article 358(1) and (4) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

The Leninskyi District Court of Kharkiv convicted a surrogate of aiding the forgery of a birth certificate, using the forged certificate at the border and illegally taking across the border the child of German citizens, whom she removed in order to hide the child from the biological parents. On December 26, 2024, the trial court sentenced her to four years in prison, suspended with probation. On appeals by the prosecutor and the victim's representative, the Kharkiv Court of Appeal on June 2, 2025 set aside the sentence and imposed two years of actual imprisonment. On November 12, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the appellate sentence (case No. 642/3201/23).

On June 25, 2026, the Mostyska District Court of Lviv Region approved a plea agreement with a surrogate who, at registration, recorded herself as the child's mother and the intended father, a French citizen, as the father. On a lawyer's instructions, she took the child to Poland through the Mostyska border crossing and handed the child to the intended father. The court sentenced her to five years in prison under Article 332(2) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, suspended with probation (case No. 448/888/26).

A civil dispute over a surrogate keeping the child ends differently. A surrogate who, contrary to the agreement, registered the twins she delivered as the children of herself and her husband lost only the maternity record after the genetic father sued. On May 22, 2019, the Supreme Court agreed with the refusal to terminate her parental rights with respect to a child who died a few hours after birth, and explained that a demand for criminal prosecution cannot be heard in civil proceedings (case No. 705/6741/16-ts).

Recovery through the courts

Because coercion is not available, the couple is left with a lawsuit to collect the penalty and recover costs. The Supreme Court explained how courts handle such claims in a case brought by a couple against a surrogate who did not become pregnant after signing an agreement in July 2016. According to the couple, the surrogate did not complete treatment for an infection, missed doctor's appointments on October 24 and 25, 2016, and left Kyiv. The couple sought UAH 115,352.17 in costs for medical services, tests, travel and meals, a contractual penalty of UAH 9,000 at UAH 1,500 for each of six breaches of the physician's instructions, and damages for emotional distress.

The ruling shows that a court reads a penalty clause literally and applies it only to the event it describes. A penalty for terminating a pregnancy cannot be collected if there was no pregnancy, and a penalty for smoking cannot be collected without proof of smoking on a specific date. A court may also reduce a penalty that substantially exceeds the actual damages (Article 551(3) of the Civil Code of Ukraine), and a EUR 5,000 penalty against a woman earning a few thousand hryvnias a month falls squarely within that rule.

Courts read the agreement just as literally when the surrogate is the plaintiff. A surrogate sued a couple for UAH 21,808.30 in monthly payments, a supplement for the week of pregnancy and a clothing allowance. On February 1, 2021, the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv dismissed the claim because, under the agreement, only the clinic could confirm a pregnancy, and the clinic had not confirmed it. On September 15, 2021, the Kyiv Court of Appeal affirmed and declined to accept test results from an independent laboratory as evidence of pregnancy (case No. 754/15834/19).

A clinic also failed to recover damages from a surrogate. After the birth, the intended father, a Chinese citizen, received a DNA test showing that he was not the child's genetic father, and the surrogate gave up the child. Law enforcement opened a criminal investigation under Article 149(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and served the surrogate with a notice of suspicion. The clinic sued the surrogate for UAH 99,999 in damage to its business reputation, and on February 1, 2021, the Korosten City and District Court of Zhytomyr Region granted the claim. On July 7, 2021, the Zhytomyr Court of Appeal reversed and dismissed the claim, holding that the mere opening of a criminal investigation and the spread of information did not prove that the harm resulted from the surrogate's unlawful conduct (case No. 279/5244/20).

A surrogate who seeks her compensation under the agreement risks seeing the debtors leave Ukraine before judgment. In one case, a surrogate filed a claim for UAH 275,500 in compensation and asked the court to freeze the defendants' homes and bar one of them from crossing the state border until the case was decided. On July 19, 2023, the Saksahanskyi District Court of Kryvyi Rih returned the statement of claim because the plaintiff had not cured its defects after two orders leaving it without action (case No. 523/4597/22).

A judgment does not mean the money will be collected. An enforcement officer may withhold no more than 20 percent of a debtor's wages for contractual debts, and up to 50 percent only for child support and damages caused by a criminal offense (Article 70(2) of the Law of Ukraine "On Enforcement Proceedings"). The enforcement officer cannot levy execution on maternity benefits or on the lump-sum childbirth benefit (Article 73 of the Law of Ukraine "On Enforcement Proceedings").

Other cases in the register show the financial situation of surrogates. The social welfare department of the Lozova City Council twice went to court to recover low-income family and single-mother benefits from women who had received them without declaring their surrogacy compensation (judgments of the Lozova City and District Court of Kharkiv Region of November 17, 2021, case No. 629/5457/21, and of the Sakhnovshchyna District Court of Kharkiv Region of August 27, 2024, case No. 629/3726/24). In a ruling approving a debt restructuring plan in a personal insolvency case, the debtor explained that she joined a surrogacy program to pay off her debts (case No. 904/1165/25). In another case, a woman claimed that she became a surrogate to repay a loan, but the court ordered her to pay USD 7,000 because she could not prove repayment (case No. 130/1096/24).

If a surrogate has no official income or registered property, enforcement proceedings can stay open for years without a single payment. Courts treat property a woman buys with her compensation as her separate property, because the compensation is payment for a personal physiological process rather than joint marital income (judgments of the Shpola District Court of Cherkasy Region of June 12, 2026, case No. 710/1293/25, and of the Pryluky City and District Court of Chernihiv Region of June 10, 2026, case No. 742/23/26). Such property is therefore available to satisfy the surrogate's own debts, but in these cases the women had spent the compensation on housing, paying off a loan and a car.

Liability of the clinic and the agency

A clinic or agency is liable to the couple if the couple proves fraud or a violation of the procedure for using reproductive technologies. Otherwise, courts determine the obligations of the clinic and the agency from the literal text of the contract, which the clinic or agency drafts itself.

An unmarried German couple who paid EUR 30,000 for a package of programs sued a surrogacy agency, its director and its coordinator. The Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv found that the contract with the couple had been signed by a private enterprise without a license, while the license belonged to a limited liability company with the same name, and that the couple had paid into employees' personal accounts. Ten minutes before a meeting, the agency replaced the agreed surrogate with another woman. Two of the couple's five embryos were transferred to the surrogate, the other three were not preserved in breach of the program terms, and the agency offered the couple a paid second attempt. The court concluded that the director had built a scheme under which no legal entity could be held responsible for the quality of the services.

On July 24, 2023, the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv issued a default judgment voiding the contract as concluded under the influence of fraud and holding the agency, the director and the coordinator jointly and severally liable for double damages, EUR 21,440.22 and UAH 13,360, plus damages for emotional distress (Article 230 of the Civil Code of Ukraine). Before the judgment, the court had frozen the director's apartment, but the order was never enforced because she had already disposed of it (case No. 759/24311/21). The agency bore the same name as the network whose coordinator, lawyer and interpreters later admitted guilt under Article 149(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Surrogacy agencies sign agency agreements or information services agreements with couples. On April 18, 2019, the Kholodnohirskyi District Court of Kharkiv dismissed a genetic mother's claim against an agency to recover UAH 22,000 and damages for emotional distress. The court held that the agency had performed its obligation when the couple signed the agreement with the surrogate, because the contract named that very event as proof of full performance (case No. 642/2368/17).

A couple enrolled in a program with a "guaranteed" result claimed EUR 29,000 in damages and EUR 2,900 for emotional distress from the agency's representative, because after the pregnancy ended in the 21st week the agency did not restart the program without additional payment. On February 3, 2023, the Bohunskyi District Court of Zhytomyr dismissed the claim. The court found that the agency had not repudiated the contract, that the pregnancy ended in a spontaneous miscarriage through no fault of the surrogate, and that the couple itself had breached the contract by contacting the surrogate directly and demanding that she terminate the pregnancy (case No. 295/8309/21).

If a couple refuses to pay for a program, the court orders payment to the clinic. A couple bought a EUR 49,000 package under which the clinic selected the surrogate, and refused to make the third payment of EUR 15,000 because the agreement with the surrogate they received was not notarized and they had no confirmation of the pregnancy. The child was born, and under the contract the services were deemed rendered at the moment of birth. On March 26, 2024, the Kharkiv Court of Appeal agreed that the couple must pay for services it actually used and reduced the amount to UAH 302,778 only because the couple had already paid part of the installment (case No. 642/3316/23).

Nor can a surrogate demand from the clinic more than the contract expressly provides. A surrogate with several children who received low-income benefits lost a twin pregnancy in July 2016 and sued the clinic for UAH 700,000 in damages for emotional distress. She had reported ultrasound results showing complications to the clinic on June 9, 2016, but the clinic scheduled her examination only for July 4. On September 28, 2023, the Sviatoshynskyi District Court of Kyiv granted the claim. On May 22, 2024, the Kyiv Court of Appeal reversed and dismissed it, because the joint agreement did not require the clinic to monitor the surrogate's pregnancy, and the forensic medical examination was never performed because the plaintiff did not pay for it (case No. 759/15994/17).

A clinic is liable to its patients for violating the procedure for using reproductive technologies, and courts award substantial sums for it. During an IVF program, a state clinic used donor material without the couple's consent, and because the child had no genetic link to him, a court removed the patient's former husband from the birth record as the father. On August 5, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld an award of UAH 800,000 to the patient for emotional distress and remanded the claim for pecuniary damages. On October 13, 2026, the Ivano-Frankivsk Court of Appeal awarded UAH 1,728,000 in pecuniary damages against the clinic, an amount equal to child support until the child comes of age (case No. 344/4082/23).

Embryos

Ukrainian law does not define the legal status of embryos. A clinic that stores embryos releases them only with the consent of both partners, and if one of them has died and the cryopreservation agreement does not address that situation, the clinic requires a court decision.

On February 13, 2026, the Lychakivskyi District Court of Lviv granted the claim of a woman who had lived with a soldier as a family without a registered marriage, against the clinic storing their joint embryos. The soldier was killed, and neither the applications under Procedure No. 787 nor the storage agreement addressed the disposal of embryos in the event of death. The court inferred from the soldier's conduct during his lifetime that he wanted his partner to use the embryos rather than destroy them, and granted her the right to dispose of and use them (case No. 463/12547/25).

On September 8, 2025, the Tsentralnyi District Court of Dnipro heard a claim by the parents of a deceased man against two clinics and his widow, who had renounced the inheritance. The court applied the property rules to the embryos by analogy, taking into account the moral principles of society (Article 13(4) of the Civil Code of Ukraine), and ordered the clinic to hand over to the parents three of the cryopreserved embryos of their son and his widow. The court also recognized the parents' right, as a married couple, to a surrogacy program using these embryos and to be registered as the child's parents. During the appeal, the parents withdrew the claim, and on April 24, 2026, the Dnipro Court of Appeal declared the judgment void and closed the proceedings (case No. 203/4924/23).

In the same case, the trial court held that a storage agreement giving the widow sole control over the embryos had never been concluded, because her husband had not signed it. A couple should therefore specify, in a cryopreservation agreement signed by both spouses, who controls the embryos if one spouse dies or loses capacity and if the marriage is dissolved.

Registering the couple as the child's parents

The law gives the couple one guarantee: registration as the parents of the child born to the surrogate. The civil registry office may refuse registration only on the grounds listed in the law: if registration would violate the law, if the documents do not meet legal requirements, or if the applicant applied to the wrong office (Article 21 of the Law of Ukraine "On State Registration of Civil Status Acts"). In practice, registry offices refuse on other grounds as well, and the couple obtains documents for the child only after challenging the registry office's refusal in an administrative court.

The Darnytskyi civil registry office in Kyiv refused a couple because it believed the surrogate had been pregnant when she joined the program. On June 26, 2020, the Kyiv District Administrative Court overturned the refusal and explained that the registry office has no authority to review whether reproductive technologies were used lawfully (case No. 640/4040/20). The Kharkiv city civil registry office refused to register a birth because the embryo had been transferred before the couple's marriage was registered. The child died, and the parents could not bury the child without documents until, on July 21, 2020, the Kharkiv District Administrative Court ordered the registry office to register the birth (case No. 520/7324/2020).

Instead of registering a birth, the Halytskyi civil registry office in Lviv sent an inquiry to the Czech Republic through the Ministry of Justice and suggested that the couple register the birth there. On April 14, 2025, the Lviv District Administrative Court held this inaction unlawful and ordered the registry office to register the birth of a child genetically related only to the father (case No. 380/23763/24). The Makariv civil registry office refused the child's grandmother, who filed the application under the couple's apostilled power of attorney, but on November 15, 2021, the Dnipropetrovsk District Administrative Court overturned the refusal (case No. 160/14508/21).

If the surrogate does not give notarized consent to registering the couple as parents, the civil registry office cannot register the birth. A German couple whose child the surrogate refused to hand over, kept hidden and demanded money for was turned away by both the hospital and the registry office. On October 19, 2021, the Balakliia District Court of Kharkiv Region established the fact of birth of a child conceived by the couple, relying on a genetic paternity examination conducted in a criminal investigation. The couple asked the court to order immediate enforcement so that the registry office could register the birth right away, but the court refused, because at that time cases establishing the fact of birth were not on the exhaustive list of cases in which judgments are enforced immediately (case No. 610/3131/21). The registry office could therefore register the birth only after the judgment became final, that is, after the deadline for appeal had passed (Article 273(1) of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine). Following amendments made by Law of Ukraine No. 2345-IX of July 1, 2022, courts order immediate enforcement of a judgment establishing the fact of birth in a territory under martial law (Article 430(1)(8) of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine). On August 16, 2022, the Khortytskyi District Court of Zaporizhzhia relied on this ground to order immediate enforcement of a judgment establishing the fact of birth in a case brought by an unmarried woman whose child was carried by a surrogate (case No. 337/2288/22).

A couple can go years without being registered as parents if law enforcement removes the child before registration. On April 24, 2020, the police removed as "found" two children of a couple, a Chinese citizen and a Ukrainian citizen, born through surrogacy programs, and the children's services department registered the children with fictitious information about the parents. The couple sued to establish paternity and maternity, and on April 4, 2023, the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv granted the claim concerning the son (case No. 760/7095/21). As to the daughter, the trial court granted the claim, but on November 4, 2025, the Kyiv Court of Appeal dismissed it because the father failed to appear for a second forensic genetic examination, which the court treated as evasion of the examination (Article 109 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine). On September 16, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling, and six years after the children were removed, the couple is still not registered as the parents of the girl, whose guardian is an unrelated person (case No. 760/6143/21).

If the intended parents abandon the child, the surrogate and her husband become the parents of record. On April 18, 2022, the Kropyvnytskyi Court of Appeal upheld a child support award against a surrogate and her husband who had been registered as the parents of a child with congenital defects and had not taken the child home from the maternity hospital. The court explained that parental rights and duties flow from the registry record, and that neither the surrogacy agreement nor a DNA test showing that a Chinese citizen was the father released the registered parents from the duty of support until they contested paternity in a separate lawsuit (case No. 396/741/21).

A Ukrainian birth certificate is not always recognized abroad. Under German law, the mother is the woman who gave birth, so German couples ask a Ukrainian court to establish that they are the parents of a child already registered in Ukraine. On April 30, 2024, the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv and, on August 26, 2026, the Podilskyi District Court of Kyiv granted such petitions (cases No. 760/7302/24, No. 758/4156/26). On January 26, 2024, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv refused to open proceedings on an identical petition, holding that the child's parentage had already been established by the birth certificate (case No. 761/3100/24). Because the courts are divided, establishing paternity and maternity in court for a foreign couple depends on how the petition is framed and which court receives it.

What this means for intended parents

The law registers a foreign couple as the child's parents and denies the surrogate the right to contest that record. Every other relationship among the clinic, the agency, the surrogate and the couple exists only in contracts, which courts interpret literally and which an enforcement officer cannot enforce against a debtor with no income. If any participant in a program abuses its position, the couple ends up either with a judgment that cannot be enforced or with a criminal investigation in which the couple itself may become a suspect.

The losses are not equal. The clinic loses the fee for one program, and the surrogate loses compensation she can earn in the next program. The couple loses its own genetic material, which for most couples who turn to surrogacy amounts to a few embryos, sometimes just one. A court may award money for an embryo that is used up or destroyed, but the embryo itself cannot be replaced.