Egg donation abroad: how a clinic reaches recipients from other countries
Recipients go where donors are available, so tell them how long they wait, who the donors are and what the child can learn.
How big is it?
In the Czech Republic, 84.6% of egg recipient cycles in 2023 were for women living abroad (ÚZIS), and in Spain egg donation was half of all cycles for patients from abroad in 2021 (Registro SEF).
Where do they come from?
From countries with long waits: in France the wait for donor eggs averaged 22 months in 2025 (Agence de la biomédecine).
What do they need to hear?
- How long they wait for a donor.
- How you choose and match donors.
- Whether donors are anonymous, and what the child can learn later.
- How many families one donor can help.
Why state the identity rule up front?
Recipients often hope the child can one day know the donor, while donors expect to stay anonymous (Volks et al., 2026).
Will the limits change?
ESHRE wants an EU-wide limit, starting at 50 families per donor and falling to 15 or fewer (Frith et al., 2026).
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See if your clinic qualifies →Sources
- ÚZIS ČR and the National Register of Reproductive Health. Asistovaná reprodukce v České republice 2021 to 2023. uzis.cz
- Registro Nacional de Actividad 2021, Registro SEF. Ministerio de Sanidad, Comisión Nacional de Reproducción Humana Asistida. cnrha.sanidad.gob.es
- Agence de la biomédecine. Press release on assisted reproduction activity in 2025, 13 April 2026. agence-biomedecine.fr
- Volks C, Hammarberg K, Whittaker A. Cross-border egg donation and donor identity. Human Fertility, 2026. doi.org/10.1080/14647273.2026.2618232
- Frith et al. ESHRE position paper on limits to the number of families per gamete donor. Human Reproduction, 2026. doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deag108