Record number of Australian children born overseas through surrogacy
A record number of Australian children have been born overseas through surrogacy, with 376 children born in the year ended 30 June 2024. That number is almost double the usual number, which is typically about 200 children born. The number tops the previous record of 275 children born overseas via surrogacy, which was set in 2020.
Only one in five children born to Australians via surrogacy are born in Australia. Four in five are born overseas. By comparison, the most recent figure for domestic gestational surrogacy births was 82, from 2021.
More Australian children are born via surrogacy in the most expensive surrogacy destination, the United States (121), than are born at home (82, in 2021).
“These figures demonstrate that Australian intended parents, bottled up at home during the pandemic, want to become parents as quickly as possible, with record demand,” said our director, and father through surrogacy, Stephen Page.
“They also show that Australian intended parents are forced to go offshore in order to become parents, because the Australian system of regulating surrogacy does not meet their legitimate needs.”
“The reason why there is a shortage of surrogates in Australia is because we as a nation believe that it is OK for women to risk their lives to enable others to become parents, but we it’s not OK to compensation them for doing so. It is no surprise that most women, faced with that equation, refuse to be surrogates.”
“The numbers also demonstrate that laws in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland that criminalise their residents in undertaking commercial surrogacy overseas simply don’t work. Since 2009, over 3,000 children have been born to Australian intended parents overseas through surrogacy- and there has been not one prosecution since these laws commenced. New Zealand researchers accurately called these laws ‘a failed experiment’. The existence of these laws, as two prominent judges said a decade ago, make a mockery of the law- and they ought to be repealed.”
With the exception of Ukraine, most overseas surrogacy destinations were running at record levels.
Top 10 surrogacy destinations for Australians, 2024
| Ranking | Country | Ranking last year/ movement | Number of Australian children born via surrogacy year ended 30 June 2024 | Number of Australian children born via surrogacy year ended 30 June 2023 | Comment |
| 1. | United States | 1. Steady | 121 | 68 | A new record. The previous record was 120 in 2020. |
| 2. | Georgia | 3. +1 | 76 | 33 | A new record. The previous record was in 2023. Unlikely to be repeated, given the uncertainty in Georgia. |
| 3. | Canada | 4. +1 | 37 | 22 | A new record. The previous record was 34 in 2020. |
| 4. | Colombia | 5. +1 | 32 | 12 | A new record. |
| 5. | Ukraine | 2. -3 | 21 | 43 | A continued drop from pre-war figures. |
| 6. | Mexico | 6. Steady | 18 | 14 | A new record. The previous record was in 2023. |
| 7. | Greece | 7. Steady | 15 | 7 | A new record, unlikely to be replicated, given MFI scandal. |
| 8. | Thailand | 8. Steady | 11 | 6 | The same as 2020, greater than intervening years. |
| 9. | Argentina | N/A | 7 | 0 | A new record. No Australian children were born in Argentina between 2009 and 2024. |
| 10. | Iran | N/A | 5 | <5 | A new record. |
| United Kingdom | N/A | 5 | <5 | A new record. | |
| Vietnam | N/A | 5 | 0 | A new record. |
Australian children were for the first time born via surrogacy in these countries:
- Israel
- Peru
- Samoa
Stephen Page’s second book, International Assisted Reproductive Technology, has now been published by the American Bar Association.
Stephen Page is a father through surrogacy in Queensland, as he wrote about in his first book, When Not If: surrogacy for Australians.
Sources of data:
Births of Australian children via surrogacy overseas: Applications for Australian citizenship by descent of children born via surrogacy, Australian Department of Home Affairs, obtained by Stephen Page under Freedom of Information
Births of Australian children via surrogacy in Australia: Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproductive Database (ANZARD), University of New South Wales, annual report, 2021 (2023); Assisted Reproductive Technology in New Zealand 2021, ANZARD (2024).
