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Gestational surrogacy in the U.S. costs range from $100,000 - $200,000+, which often feels overwhelming after prior fertility care.
Financial help for surrogacy generally falls into three categories: assistance you do not repay, financing that spreads costs over time, and strategies that reduce or protect your overall investment.
Grants, employer benefits, loans, insurance coverage and agency financial protections can all play different roles.
American Surrogacy can help you understand your expected expenses and identify financial strategies that fit your family-building plans.
What Financial Help Is Available for Surrogacy?
There is no single program that pays for surrogacy for most intended parents. Instead, families often combine several resources to make the overall cost more manageable.
| Financial Option | Must Be Repaid? |
Common Uses |
| Surrogacy grants | No | IVF, agency fees and other qualifying expenses |
| Employer fertility benefits | No | IVF, surrogacy and family-building expenses |
| Fertility or personal loans | Yes | Agency, medical and legal expenses |
| Insurance coverage | No | Qualifying medical and maternity expenses |
Understanding the difference between these options can help you avoid borrowing more than necessary and prioritize assistance that reduces your actual out-of-pocket costs.
Loans and Financing for Surrogacy
Surrogacy loans do not make the journey less expensive. Instead, they allow intended parents to spread expenses over time.
Financing may be useful when you can afford the overall cost but do not want to liquidate savings or pay every expense upfront.
Fertility Financing
Specialized fertility financing companies may offer loans designed around IVF, fertility clinic and surrogacy payment schedules.
American Surrogacy partners with Sunfish, a fertility planning company that helps intended parents explore financing options for family-building expenses.
Personal Loans
Banks, credit unions and online lenders may offer unsecured personal loans that can be used for surrogacy expenses.
Personal loans generally provide fixed repayment terms, although interest rates depend heavily on creditworthiness and market conditions.
401(k) Loans
Some retirement plans allow participants to borrow against their 401(k) balance.
A 401(k) loan does not usually require a credit check, but repayment rules, lost investment growth and job changes can create significant financial consequences.
How to Compare Surrogacy Loans
Before borrowing, compare more than the monthly payment.
Important factors include:
- Annual percentage rate
- Fixed versus variable interest
- Origination fees
- Repayment period
- Early-payment penalties
- Credit requirements
- Total interest paid
- Whether funds are paid directly to providers
- Risks associated with secured or retirement-based borrowing
Calculate the total repayment amount, not just whether the monthly payment fits your current budget.
Surrogacy Grants for Intended Parents
Surrogacy grants provide financial assistance that does not need to be repaid. Awards are usually competitive and may cover only certain expenses.
Some programs support surrogacy directly, while others primarily fund IVF, embryo creation or other fertility treatments used as part of a surrogacy journey.
Organizations intended parents may research include:
- Baby Quest Foundation: Provides family-building grants that may be used toward qualifying fertility and surrogacy-related expenses.
- Men Having Babies – Gay Parenting Assistance Program: Provides financial assistance and discounted services for eligible gay prospective fathers pursuing surrogacy.
- Tinina Q. Cade Foundation: Offers Family Building Grants for qualifying fertility treatment and family-building expenses.
- Hope for Fertility Foundation: Provides grants to qualifying families undergoing fertility treatment.
- Worth the Wait Charity: Supports qualifying cancer survivors pursuing fertility preservation and family-building options.
Eligibility, award amounts and eligible expenses can change, so review each organization's current requirements before applying.
Who Qualifies for Surrogacy Grants?
Eligibility varies significantly between programs.
Grant organizations may consider:
- Household income or demonstrated financial need
- U.S. residency or citizenship requirements
- Medical infertility diagnoses
- Current treatment with a fertility clinic
- LGBTQ+ family-building circumstances
- Cancer survivorship or other medical history
- Age requirements
- Whether embryos have already been created
- Whether the grant permits surrogacy-related expenses
Not every grant requires an infertility diagnosis, which is particularly important for LGBTQ+ intended parents and others pursuing surrogacy for reasons unrelated to infertility.
Employer Fertility Benefits That Can Help Pay for Surrogacy
Employer-sponsored family-building benefits can provide some of the most valuable financial help available because eligible funds generally do not need to be repaid.
Depending on your employer's plan, benefits may cover expenses such as:
- IVF
- Egg or sperm donation
- Embryo creation
- Surrogacy agency expenses
- Legal costs
- Surrogate-related expenses
- Fertility medications
Companies frequently administer these benefits through fertility and family-building platforms such as Progyny, Carrot and Maven.
However, coverage varies by employer. Having access to one of these benefit managers does not necessarily mean every surrogacy expense will be covered.
How to Find Out Whether Your Employer Covers Surrogacy
Contact your human resources or benefits department before committing to major expenses.
Ask specifically:
- Does my family-building benefit include gestational surrogacy?
- What is the lifetime reimbursement maximum?
- Are agency fees eligible?
- Are legal expenses eligible?
- Are IVF and embryo transfer expenses covered separately?
- Must I use specific clinics or providers?
- Are reimbursements taxable?
- Do expenses need to occur during the current benefit year?
Understanding these rules early can help you use employer benefits before turning to loans or personal savings.
Does Insurance Help Pay for Surrogacy?
Traditional health insurance usually does not cover the entire cost of a surrogacy journey, but insurance can still reduce certain medical expenses.
Different policies may apply to different parts of the process.
Intended Parent Fertility Coverage
An intended parent's insurance or employer fertility benefit may cover IVF, medications, embryo testing or embryo creation.
Coverage depends on the policy and does not automatically extend to surrogate-related expenses.
Surrogate Medical Coverage
A surrogate's health insurance may cover qualifying prenatal care and delivery expenses if the policy does not exclude surrogate pregnancies.
Surrogacy-friendly insurance coverage should be carefully reviewed before embryo transfer to identify exclusions, deductibles and potential additional coverage needs.
What Insurance Usually Does Not Cover
Traditional health insurance generally does not pay expenses such as:
- Surrogate compensation
- Agency fees
- Matching services
- Legal contracts
- Escrow management
- Travel expenses
- Certain fertility treatments
Insurance should therefore be treated as one component of your financial plan rather than a complete funding solution.
Can You Use an HSA, FSA or Tax Deduction for Surrogacy?
Some fertility-related medical expenses may qualify for tax-advantaged treatment, but surrogacy expenses are considerably more complicated.
Health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts generally require expenses to qualify under applicable medical-expense rules.
Expenses incurred for another person, including a gestational surrogate, may be treated differently from medical expenses incurred by the intended parent.
Tax deductions involving IVF, donor conception and surrogacy can also depend on your individual circumstances.
Speak with a qualified tax professional before assuming that surrogacy expenses, fertility expenses or reimbursements will qualify for a deduction or tax-free treatment.
Other Ways Intended Parents Pay for Surrogacy
Families frequently combine formal financial assistance with personal funding strategies.
Options can include:
Personal Savings
Savings provide the greatest flexibility and do not create future repayment obligations. Some intended parents build a dedicated surrogacy fund before beginning the matching process.
Family Gifts or Private Loans
Parents, grandparents or other relatives sometimes contribute toward family-building expenses.
If money is structured as a loan rather than a gift, put repayment expectations in writing and discuss potential tax implications with a financial professional.
Crowdfunding
Online fundraising can help some intended parents offset portions of their surrogacy expenses.
Crowdfunding is unlikely to fund an entire journey for most families, but it may help with specific expenses such as medications, embryo transfers or travel.
Credit Cards
Credit cards can provide short-term flexibility but frequently carry significantly higher interest rates than personal or fertility loans.
They are generally better suited to manageable short-term expenses that can be repaid quickly rather than large surrogacy balances.
What Are the Most Practical Options for Reducing Surrogacy Costs?
Evaluating options for reducing surrogacy costs is just as effective as securing external funding for your journey. Combining financial assistance with risk-mitigation strategies protects your family savings from unexpected setbacks.
Researching additional ways to afford surrogacy gives you practical tools to manage your overall investment.
Effective strategies to lower overall expenses include:
First-time gestational carriers standardly receive lower base compensation than experienced carriers, saving you 10,000 - 20,000+ while completing the same comprehensive screening. Unreimbursed medical expenses exceeding 7.5% of your adjusted gross income may qualify as tax deductions under IRS Publication 502 rules. Audit your surrogate candidate's existing health insurance policy early or select a surrogacy-specific insurance plan to prevent surprise medical bills. Choose an agency that shields your investment against match disruptions and failed embryo transfers.
You can lower costs without compromising on screening, since every carrier completes the same comprehensive process.
Taking these cost-reduction steps early ensures you don't face unexpected financial surges during your journey.
Paying for Surrogacy After Failed IVF
Moving from IVF to surrogacy can feel financially daunting when you have already spent significant money on fertility treatment.
However, intended parents with existing embryos may be able to move forward without repeating every part of the IVF process.
A gestational surrogate can carry an embryo created using the intended parents' or donors' genetic material, allowing intended parents to continue using embryos they have already created.
Before paying for another retrieval or IVF cycle, ask your reproductive endocrinologist whether the primary obstacle is embryo quality, implantation, recurrent pregnancy loss or the ability to safely carry a pregnancy.
When the primary concern involves carrying the pregnancy rather than creating embryos, surrogacy may provide another path forward.
Speak with a surrogacy specialist today to learn how our pre-screening and Limited Risk Program build confidence into your next step.
How American Surrogacy Protects Your Family From Unforeseen Match Disruption Costs
Financial help is not only about finding additional money. It is also about protecting the money you have already committed.
American Surrogacy's Limited Risk Program is designed to reduce financial exposure to certain costs when a surrogacy journey does not proceed as planned.
Depending on the circumstances covered by the program, protections can include unlimited rematching without another agency matching fee and protection from certain repeat screening, medical or legal expenses associated with a disrupted match.
Get a Personalized Surrogacy Cost Estimate
There are more ways to financially prepare for surrogacy than simply taking out a large loan.
Grants, employer benefits, insurance coverage, savings, financing and agency financial protections can work together to make your journey more manageable.
American Surrogacy can help you understand your anticipated expenses, identify which costs may already be covered and compare programs based on both upfront price and financial risk.
Disclaimer: The financial information on this site is for general educational purposes only and doesn't constitute formal financial or legal advice. Total expenses, fee structures and third-party costs vary based on individual circumstances and location.