Third-Party Reproduction in the Philippines: A Guide for Asian Intended Parents

Summary: Third-Party Reproduction in the Philippines

The Philippines is one of the only countries in Asia with no statute regulating assisted reproductive technology (ART). In the absence of legislation, the field is regulated entirely by professional society guidelines, principally those of the Philippine Society for Reproductive Medicine (PSRM), which does not allow members to carry out procedures using third party reproduction (1, 2, 3).

As a result, mainstream IVF clinics in the Philippines do not offer third-party reproduction. The IVF capacity that exists is also modest. The PSRM's figures counted approximately 9,000 ART procedures performed in the country in 2019 (6, 7). Demand is reportedly rising and local commentators describe a market “relatively underserved” given a population of 109 million, but there are few clinics and those that exist are mostly concentrated in Metro Manila clinics(10, 11). Filipinos who need a donor or a gestational carrier therefore go abroad.

Is Egg Donation Legal in the Philippines?

There is no Philippine law that either permits or prohibits egg donation, but practically it is not available at reputable clinics with PSRM members. The Reproductive Health Law (Republic Act No. 10354, the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012) makes no mention of assisted reproductive technology at all, and despite repeated attempts in Congress no ART or surrogacy statute has been enacted (1, 3). The single statutory provision that touches on donor conception is Article 164 of the Family Code, which provides that “children conceived as a result of artificial insemination of the wife with the sperm of the husband or that of a donor or both are likewise legitimate children of the husband and his wife,” provided both spouses authorised or ratified the insemination in a written instrument before the child's birth and the instrument is recorded with the birth certificate in the civil registry (31, 32). Article 164 does not authorise IVF, egg donation, or embryo donation.

In the absence of legislation, the practical rules come from the Philippine Society for Reproductive Medicine which does not permit third party reproduction by its members. PSRM, the national professional society of certified reproductive medicine practitioners, first issued its Ethical Guidelines on the Provision and Practice of Advanced Reproductive Technology and Intrauterine Insemination in 2006, with revisions in 2011, 2016, and 2023 (4, 5). The guidelines also limit ART to legally married heterosexual couples and endorse only IVF using the gametes of the married spouses themselves (1, 5).

There are a variety of proposed bills to regulate third party reproduction. These include including Senator Manny Villar's 2006 Senate Bill 2344 (which would have prohibited surrogacy outright) and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago's Family Building Act in 2007 and 2010 (which would have expanded coverage and recognised ART), both of which failed to pass (3). In 2023, Representative Khymer Adan Olaso filed House Bill 8301 to create an ART and Surrogacy Regulation Commission; the bill lapsed when the 19th Congress ended in mid-2025 and the 20th Congress convened on 28 July 2025 (6, 7, 25, 26). Senator Benhur Abalos filed a similar surrogacy regulation bill in January 2025 (27). None has been enacted. Same-sex marriage is not recognised, the SOGIE Equality Bill (which would not legalise same-sex marriage and would specifically exclude marriage from its scope) remains stalled after more than two decades. Single women, single men, same-sex couples, unmarried couples have no domestic clinical pathway through PSRM-member clinics (28, 29, 30).

Availability of Donor Eggs, Sperm, and Embryos in the Philippines

Donor eggs, donor sperm, and donor embryos are not available through licensed Philippine IVF clinics (1, 4, 5). There is no commercial frozen egg bank operating in the Philippines. Importing donor gametes from foreign banks for use in a Philippine clinic is not a settled pathway: there is no statute authorising or prohibiting it, but PSRM's position against donor gametes in IVF means that even an imported sperm vial or imported frozen egg cohort would not, in practice, be used by a mainstream clinic.

There is no formal egg-donor compensation framework in the Philippines because egg donation is not offered through licensed clinics (1, 4). Where donor-sperm artificial insemination has occurred under Article 164 of the Family Code, the arrangement is normally treated as private between the couple, the donor, and the treating physician, with no published or standard compensation schedule (31).

Surrogacy in the Philippines

Surrogacy is not explicitly legal or illegal under Philippine statute but practically not ethically accessible. There is no national law that authorises or prohibits gestational or traditional surrogacy, and no Philippine court has set a clear precedent on the enforceability of a surrogacy contract (1, 19, 35). The Family Code addresses artificial insemination but is silent on surrogacy and does not contemplate a scenario in which the gestational mother is not the legal mother. In Philippine law as currently written, the woman who gives birth is presumed to be the child's mother for civil-registry purposes (1, 31).

PSRM treats surrogacy as not acceptable in the Philippines, and licensed PSRM-member clinics do not perform surrogacy (4, 5). PSRM-affiliated practitioners have stated publicly that the profession prohibits both surrogacy and IVF with donation, “open to abuse of both parties” being one of the reasons given (12).

A parallel underground market has been documented in detail journalists and by Filipino academics (1, 14, 15, 16, 17). In the typical pattern reported by these sources, prospective surrogates, often women in their twenties or thirties, from poor or rural communities, are recruited through Facebook groups, individual handlers, or massage-therapy or nursing-related social networks; they are sent to small clinics where IVF and embryo transfer are performed; and the birth certificate is then forged to record the intended mother as the gestational mother, eliminating any paper trail of the surrogate (15, 16). Reports describe surrogates being underpaid or unpaid, being held in dormitory-style “clinics,” and being abandoned in the event of miscarriage (15, 17). In October 2024, the Bureau of Immigration intercepted 20 Filipino women being smuggled toward Cambodia under a similar scheme; 13 of them were later convicted in Cambodia on trafficking-related charges, after Cambodian and Philippine authorities found the recruitment was orchestrated by a syndicate also linked to Thailand-based IVF specialists (18, 36, 37). The Bureau of Immigration has since issued repeated warnings that Filipino women are being targeted by traffickers using surrogacy as a pretext, with destinations including Cambodia, Georgia, and elsewhere (37).

Can LGBTQIA+ Couples Pursue Egg Donation, Sperm Donation, or Surrogacy in the Philippines?

No. The Family Code defines marriage as a permanent union between a man and a woman, same-sex marriage is not recognised in the Philippines, and PSRM ethics guidelines limit ART to legally married heterosexual couples (1, 5, 28). Female same-sex couples cannot access IUI with donor sperm or IVF with donor sperm at a licensed clinic. Male same-sex couples have no domestic pathway to surrogacy. Single LGBTQ+ Filipinos face the same exclusion as other single people (1, 5).

The SOGIE Equality Bill, first filed in 2000 and reintroduced in every Congress since, would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics. It has stalled repeatedly in both chambers, and the most recent versions explicitly state that the bill does not legalise same-sex marriage; passage would not, on its face, change the marital eligibility rules under the Family Code or PSRM's clinical-access rules (28, 29, 30). As of 2026, the SOGIE bill remains under deliberation in the 20th Congress without a clear timeline.

Can Single Men and Women Pursue Egg Donation, Sperm Donation, or Surrogacy in the Philippines?

No, in practice. PSRM-member clinics restrict ART to legally married couples, and single women and single men cannot access IVF with their own gametes, IVF with donor gametes, or surrogacy through a licensed Philippine clinic (1, 4, 5).

Single women can, however, freeze their eggs at a small number of Philippine clinics for fertility preservation. The frozen eggs can be stored for future use, but under current PSRM guidelines the patient would need to marry before fertilising those eggs in a Philippine clinic; in practice, single women who anticipate wanting to use their eggs without first marrying often plan to do so in a jurisdiction abroad with broader access (1).

Single men have no domestic ART pathway.

How to Choose an IVF Clinic in the Philippines

Philippines has a small group of experienced IVF clinics with strong outcomes for couples seeking treatment with their own gametes. Clinics offering IVF must be licensed by the Department of Health's Health Facilities and Services Regulatory Bureau (HFSRB), which classifies them under Administrative Order 2012-0012 as specialised outpatient or hospital-based facilities and issues licences to operate based on staffing, equipment, and facility standards (33, 34). Beyond DOH licensure, the most useful credential to look for is membership in the Philippine Society for Reproductive Medicine (PSRM); the great majority of certified reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialists in the country belong to PSRM and to the Philippine Society of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (PSREI), which is the subspecialty arm of the Philippine Obstetrical and Gynecological Society (POGS) (1, 4, 5).

Some Philippine clinics have pursued Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee certification through the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand. For more information, check our page on “Choose Your Clinic”.

Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies (PGT-A) is available at some major centres in the country, although it was previously restricted under PSRM guidance; preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for serious heritable disease is permitted in cases meeting PSRM's threshold of “serious genetically transmitted conditions with no safe and effective alternative interventions,” and embryonic sex identification is permitted only where there is a strong family history of sex-linked genetic disease (1, 4, 5, 41). Patients seeking PGT-A or PGD outside these categories have historically travelled abroad, particularly to Taiwan.

Average Costs of IVF in the Philippines

A standard IVF cycle in the Philippines, using the couple's own gametes, generally costs between PHP 250,000 and PHP 600,000, equivalent to roughly USD 4,500 to USD 10,500 at recent exchange rates, depending on the clinic and what is included in the package (8, 9, 42).

Because donor eggs, donor sperm in IVF, and surrogacy are not offered through PSRM-member clinics in the Philippines, there are no domestic price points to quote for these services.

Costs in the Philippines are paid entirely out of pocket. The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), the country's national insurance carrier, does not cover IVF or related fertility treatments; the only adjacent benefit is a small allowance under “supervision of pregnancy with history of infertility” as a maternal-comorbidity package (1, 42). Private insurance carriers and HMO plans in the Philippines generally exclude infertility treatments, although some expatriate insurers may provide coverage (42).