General statistics 

• Donor conception led to more than 4,100 births in 2019, accounting for 1 in 170 of all births and for nearly 1 in 6 births using IVF in the UK.   

• The number of children born from donor sperm has tripled in the last 15 years, largely to female same-sex couples and solo mothers by choice.  

• Fewer than 4 in 100 men who apply to become sperm donors are accepted as suitable.  

 

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Legal position 

If you donate through a Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) licensed clinic, you will not: 

• be the legal parent of any child born 

• have any legal obligation to any child born 

• have any rights over how the child will be brought up 

• be asked to support the child financially 

• be named on the birth certificate

 

If you do not use a licensed clinic to donate sperm, you do not have the same statutory protections under UK law. If you are donating to a person or couple via unregulated channels, seek legal advice beforehand. It is vital that you reach an agreement with the recipient parent(s) on parental responsibility before donating.  

 

Whoever gives birth to a child is always considered the legal mother in UK law even when using a donated egg. The egg donor is never the legal mother unless she is also the surrogate, until such time that the parental order is complete. Read our legal factsheet for more information. 

 

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Anonymity 

Since 2005, the UK has operated an ‘Open ID at 18’ model, which gives children born from gamete donation the right to discover the identity of their donor / genetic parent(s) when they become a legal adult at 18. From age 16, they can access non-identifying information. Between 1991 and 2005, anonymous donations were the industry norm, but records were kept. Prior to 1991, the industry was unregulated and there are little to no records of who donated to whom, where, or how many times. 

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Donors have the right to apply to the HFEA to find out how many children have been born from their donations. This is called an ‘Opening The Register’ request and can take several months to process. The information given is limited to the sex of the child and their year of birth.  

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Recognition of the rights of donor conceived people (DCP) to know their origins and have access to familial relations and health information means that more and more are seeking out their donors. With the rise of consumer DNA tests that can be taken at home and registered with ancestry and DNA databases, and the ease with which many people can now be found on the internet and social media, it is becoming  easier than ever for donor conceived people to find their genetic parent and/or half-siblings and other relatives. Donors should be prepared for the possibility of being found by their donor offspring, even if they donated prior to 2005 when anonymity was lifted.  

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If you have donated eggs or sperm in the past or are in the process of donating, the following list of actions are ones you can take to make it easier for DCP to find you if and when they choose to. 

• Ensure your contact details and medical information are up-to-date with the HFEA and the clinic(s) where you donated 

• Consider voluntarily removing your right to anonymity if you donated between 1991 and 2005. Learn more on how to do so here. 

• Register with donor databases and registries like the HFEA Register, Donor Sibling Link, Donor Conceived Register (for those conceived prior to 1991), Donor Sibling Registry, and DCP Data. 

• Consider doing an at-home consumer DNA test and registering it with one or all of the major consumer DNA sites - Ancestry, 23andMe, Find My Past, MyHeritage, etc.. This is good practice even if you donated after 2005 and your donor offspring will we able to access your information when they turn 18, as some DCP are curious about their origins or require important medical information before then. 

• If you donated after 2005 and the Recipient Parents were given photos of you as a baby or child, consider making those photos publicly searchable by posting them on a site or page linked with you. This might be your own website if you have one, or on a social media account. 

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Donor and surrogate demographics 

Most UK surrogates are White (77 percent), with many working in the healthcare, education or business administration sectors. Less than a quarter of surrogates lived in households with income below the national average.

 

Egg and sperm donors in England from 2011-2020 lived in similar or more affluent socio-economic areas than the general population. This in combination with previous research suggests that UK sperm and egg donors largely donate for altruistic reasons. 

 

Asian and Black donors were underrepresented compared to the UK population. Asian egg donors represented 5 percent of egg donors compared to 10 percent of an age-matched population and Black sperm donors were 2 percent of sperm donors compared to 4 percent of the population. This makes it more difficult for hopeful parents from ethnically minoritised backgrounds to find donors of the same or similar ethnicity or skin colour. This experience is discussed in the personal stories section of the EACH hub. 

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More than half of all sperm donors registered in the UK were from donor imports, with 27 percent coming from the United States and 21 percent from Denmark.  

 

1 in 3 egg donors and 1 in 5 sperm donors already had at least one child of their own at the time of donation. 

 

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Age limits 

Sperm donors must be between 18 and 45 years old, with rare exceptions made for older donors who have undergone rigorous testing. The median age of UK sperm donors is 36, compared to 27 for imported sperm donors. 

 

Egg donors must be between 18 and 35 years old. The median age of egg donors in the UK is 31-32 years old. 

 

Surrogates must be at least 21 years old if they have already had children, and at least 25 years old if they haven’t. The upper limit for surrogates is determined by individual clinics, though most will accept women up to their late 40s. The average age of a UK surrogate is 36.  

 

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Financial compensation  

The maximum compensation a sperm donor can receive for expenses is £35* per visit. The maximum compensation an egg donor can receive for expenses is £750* per donation cycle. 

*The maximum compensation limit is due to rise soon, from £35 to £45 for sperm donors, and from £750 to £1,000 for egg donors.

 

There is no legal maximum or official guidance on how much compensation a surrogate can receive in the UK, which operates an altruistic model. The average compensation is around £12,000 - £20,000. In countries like the United States, which has a commercial model, surrogates often receive between $50,000 and $100,000, with all their medical and pregnancy-related expenses covered by the intended parents separately.  

 

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Family limits  

A maximum of 10 families can utilise an individual egg or sperm donor’s gametes, though this limit can be lowered at the donor’s request. Depending on the number of children born to each family, this could still potentially lead to many (dozens or more) genetic children for an individual donor. This is more likely to occur in sperm donation than in egg donation.

 

The largest number of children suspected to have resulted from an individual sperm donor is 550, to a Dutch man in his 40s. He has since been ordered to stop donating by the courts.  

 

Groups of half-siblings born from the same donor are often called ‘sibling pods’ or ‘kinship networks’ and have started finding and connecting with each other on social media and through at-home DNA test kits. The ITV documentary Born From The Same Stranger follows some of these sibling pods’ stories as they find each other and search for their donor / genetic parent.