International IVF in New York City

If the treatment you need is restricted where you live, it is probably permitted here. Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy is banned outright in several European countries. Egg donation is banned entirely in Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China requires a marriage certificate before any fertility treatment, and Italy bars single women and same-sex couples from IVF altogether. Canada, Australia and New Zealand allow egg donation but make paying a donor a criminal offense, which has produced donor shortages rather than donors — Australia has roughly one egg donor for every fifty-two recipients, and Canada imports most of its donor eggs and sperm from American banks. New York restricts none of this, sets no legal age limit, places no restriction on sex selection where almost every other country does, and has allowed compensated gestational surrogacy since 2021. Fertility patients crossing a border for treatment their own country will not provide — cross-border reproductive care — travel for exactly these reasons.

What the United States regulates, and what it does not

The United States has no federal statute governing who may have fertility treatment or which techniques a clinic may use. Oversight works through four separate mechanisms rather than one law: the Food and Drug Administration screens donor tissue and approves drugs and devices, federal laboratory standards govern the embryology laboratory, each state licenses its physicians, and professional bodies set practice standards for their members.

The practical consequence is that decisions other countries make by legislation are made here between a patient and a physician. Federal policy has recently moved further in that direction: an executive order issued in February 2025 directed agencies to expand access to IVF and reduce its cost.

It is worth being straightforward about the other side of this. The United States has no national health service paying for IVF, insurance coverage is inconsistent, and treatment is expensive compared with much of Europe. Countries with stricter laws frequently have better funding. What the US offers an international patient is permission and availability, not subsidy.

Where the restrictions are

A summary of what is restricted in twenty-eight countries people most often travel from, set against New York. Emphasized entries are the restrictions.

Current as of October 2026. This is a summary of foreign law for orientation, not legal advice, and several of these rules have changed within the last two years. Verify your own position locally before making plans.

Age limits

Neither federal law nor New York law sets a maximum age for fertility treatment. Whether treatment is appropriate is a clinical judgment, made with your physician, about your own situation. Many countries decide it by statute instead:

• France — 43 at retrieval, 45 at transfer
• Austria — 45
• Denmark and Norway — 46
• Belgium — 46 at retrieval, 47 at transfer
• Netherlands and Czech Republic — 49
• Portugal — 50
• Greece — 54, with approval required above 50
• India — 21 to 50 for the woman, by statute
• Brazil — 50 for the woman carrying the pregnancy
• Japan — no ban, but insurance stops at 43

Sex selection

Choosing an embryo's sex for reasons other than avoiding a sex-linked disease — often called family balancing — is prohibited almost everywhere. ESHRE's 2024 survey of European practice found it possible in only one European country, Armenia. It is banned by statute or professional guideline in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, and in Canada, Germany and Switzerland it is a criminal offense rather than a regulatory one. Dubai is an uncommon exception: a Dubai Health Authority standard effective February 2026 permits it for family balancing, while federal Emirati law is silent and Abu Dhabi's regulator says nothing on the subject.

The Council of Europe states the prohibition in treaty terms, at Article 14 of its Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine:

The use of techniques of medically assisted procreation shall not be allowed for the purpose of choosing a future child's sex, except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided.

Nine of the seventeen European countries above have ratified that convention. Germany and the United Kingdom have not — their prohibitions rest on domestic statute instead, and are no less strict for it.

No federal or New York law restricts the practice. PGT-A, which tests an embryo for chromosomal abnormality, also reveals its sex. Whether Chelsea Fertility NYC will act on that information for non-medical reasons is a clinical and ethical question for our physicians, and one we answer in consultation rather than on a web page.

If sex selection is prohibited where you live, establish your own position before you travel rather than afterwards. India's prohibition in particular — the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act 1994 — carries criminal penalties and exists to address sex-selective practices, and the same caution applies that applies to Italian citizens and surrogacy.

What treatment costs

We publish our self-pay prices in US dollars rather than quoting them on request, which matters more when you are traveling: you can work out what a cycle will cost before you contact anyone. A standard stimulation IVF cycle is $13,900 including ICSI and a fresh transfer, and a natural or minimal stimulation cycle is $8,900 including ICSI. A separate facility fee of $1,000 covers the retrieval room and anesthesia. Medication is billed separately and is not included in any of these figures.

The full price list covers frozen embryo transfer, egg freezing, donor egg services, multi-cycle packages and annual storage. Insurance written outside the United States is unlikely to cover treatment here, and New York's state infertility mandate applies to certain New York-regulated employer plans rather than to visitors, so plan on paying privately.

Entering the United States for treatment

Citizens of Visa Waiver Program countries can generally travel on an approved ESTA for a stay of up to 90 days. Everyone else applies for a visitor visa, and medical treatment is a recognized purpose for one. Department of State rules require an applicant traveling for treatment to show that a physician or facility has agreed to provide it and that they are able to pay for it in full.

We are a fertility practice and not immigration advisers, and nothing here is immigration advice. The rules are detailed, they treat pregnancy and childbirth differently from other medical travel, and the consequences of getting them wrong fall on you rather than on us. Check travel.state.gov for the current requirements and speak to an immigration attorney in your own country before you book flights or commit to dates.

Where we are

Chelsea Fertility NYC is a single practice at 105 East 37th Street in Murray Hill, Manhattan — a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal, and reachable from all three New York airports. You see the same physician through your cycle rather than whoever is on rotation, which is worth knowing if you are coordinating treatment around a flight home. More on visiting the practice.

If you have had treatment elsewhere

Bring what you already have — prior test results, imaging, semen analyses, operative reports, and the records of any previous cycles including medication doses and how your ovaries responded. We generally will not repeat recent testing when usable results already exist, which matters more when you are paying for travel as well as treatment. See fertility second opinion for how that consultation works, and understanding IVF success rates before you compare any clinic's published figures against another's.

Treatments people travel for

• In vitro fertilization — including ICSI and blastocyst transfer
• Preimplantation genetic testing — PGT-A and PGT-M
• Egg donation — known, anonymous and frozen donor eggs
• Gestational surrogacy — lawful in New York since 2021
• Egg freezing and fertility preservation
• LGBTQ+ family building — reciprocal IVF, donor sperm, donor egg and surrogacy

Common questions

To start, send us what you already have and tell us where you are traveling from — contact Chelsea Fertility NYC. The initial consultation for new patients is free.