Ukraine's Proposed Surrogacy Law: What Foreign Intended Parents Should Know in 2026

In August 2025, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers registered a bill that, if passed, could fundamentally change who can access surrogacy in the country. When a BBC report brought that bill to international attention in early 2026, concern spread quickly among families already in or actively considering Ukraine's surrogacy programs. The questions that followed were understandable: Is Ukraine still open? Should we pause? What happens to an existing contract?

This article addresses those questions with what the sources actually say — what the bill proposes, what has not changed, what risks remain regardless of the legislation, and what preparation looks like in a genuinely uncertain regulatory environment. It is not a reassurance piece. It is a resource for families trying to make informed decisions.

What the BBC Report Raised

The BBC's reporting documented two interlinked concerns. The first was the ethical environment in which some Ukrainian surrogates are currently recruited. The reporting cited cases of aggressive advertising targeting economically vulnerable women displaced by the war, including AI-generated social media ads promising income to women struggling to heat their homes or buy food for their children. One major fertility clinic was reported to have run a "Black Friday" promotional campaign. Critics — including women's rights advocates and members of the Ukrainian parliament — characterized these as exploitation of wartime desperation.

The second concern was structural: the gap in cross-border legal accountability when something goes wrong. Ukrainian law grants intended parents sole legal parentage from the moment of conception and removes all parental rights from the surrogate. Under normal circumstances, this framework is efficient and legally clear. But the BBC highlighted what happens when it breaks down: a case involving a child born with a severe neurological condition whose foreign intended parents disappeared, leaving a child who cannot be claimed by the surrogate — because she holds no legal rights — and who now lives in a state-run care home. The European Commission has separately flagged elevated risks of baby trafficking in the context of cross-border surrogacy combined with wartime displacement.

These are not manufactured concerns. They reflect real vulnerabilities in the current system — vulnerabilities that any responsible program has an obligation to take seriously rather than dismiss.

What Is Actually Known About Draft Law №13683

On August 22, 2025, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers registered Draft Law №13683 — titled "On the Application of Assisted Reproductive Technologies" — with the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's national parliament. The bill was included in the parliamentary agenda in February 2026. As of May 2026, it remains in committee, including the Committee on the Nation's Health, and requires further work before any floor vote.

The bill's most consequential provision for foreign families is a proposed permanent categorical ban on foreign intended parents accessing surrogacy in Ukraine, established under Article 21, Part 3 of the draft law. Separately, the bill's Transitional Provisions impose a moratorium on the export of reproductive materials and embryos of Ukrainian citizens for the duration of martial law and for three years thereafter. Additional provisions include:

• Restrictions on embryo donation: the bill requires at least one intended parent to have a genetic connection to the embryo; the use of pre-existing donated embryos from other couples is effectively prohibited; donor gametes (sperm or eggs) remain available only when at least one parent contributes their own biological material
• A prohibition on gender selection of embryos except for documented sex-linked hereditary conditions
• A surrogate age window of 21–35 years
• A non-commercial requirement: Article 23 mandates that the surrogacy service be provided without commercial remuneration; combined with a ban on all advertising of surrogacy services and surrogate recruitment, these provisions would effectively prevent commercial agency operations
• Restrictions on who may access surrogacy: couples where both spouses are foreigners are categorically prohibited under Article 21, Part 3; where one spouse is Ukrainian and the other is a foreigner, a marriage of more than three years is required; single Ukrainian citizens with documented medical contraindications may access surrogacy — a significant new provision absent from current law; foreign single individuals remain prohibited

The bill is not unopposed. The Ukrainian Association of Reproductive Medicine and multiple MPs have characterized it as "anti-demographic" — a severe restriction at a time when Ukraine is facing a significant population crisis. In response, a competing proposal was registered on September 4, 2025: Draft Law №13683-1.

The alternative bill, introduced by MP Oleksandr Danutsa, takes a different approach. Rather than imposing categorical bans, it proposes mandatory DNA verification before birth registration, detailed written safeguards, and streamlined administrative processes for documenting parentage. It focuses on accountability through procedure rather than restriction through prohibition. The existence of this competing draft is a meaningful signal — it means the final legislative outcome, if any, is not yet determined.

This Is Not the First Attempt

Draft Law №13683 is not a new idea. Ukraine's parliament has debated restrictions on foreign access to surrogacy at least three times in the past fifteen years. None of those earlier bills became law.

The April 2023 bill is particularly relevant because it proposed similar restrictive provisions targeting foreign access — and it failed. Draft Law №13683 addresses substantially the same legislative objectives.

None of this makes the regulatory risk disappear. A pattern of failed attempts does not guarantee the current bill will fail. But it does mean that families and advisors who treat Draft Law №13683 as an unprecedented break from the past are missing fifteen years of directly relevant history. The current legal framework has survived three prior reform attempts. The question is whether the political conditions in 2026 are materially different from 2011, 2020, and 2023 — and on that question, reasonable observers disagree.

What Has Not Changed Yet

As of May 8, 2026, the following remain true under Ukrainian law:

• Gestational surrogacy for foreign, heterosexual, married couples with documented medical need is legal
• Article 123 of the Family Code of Ukraine still recognizes intended parents as sole legal parents from the moment of conception
• Intended parents are listed directly on the Ukrainian birth certificate; the surrogate's name does not appear
• No adoption proceeding or post-birth court order is required inside Ukraine
• Surrogacy contracts remain legally binding and enforceable
• Draft Law №13683 has not been adopted, has no confirmed vote date, and remains in committee

The legislative process in Ukraine is operating under wartime conditions. Bills in committee can remain there for extended periods, be substantially amended, or fail to advance. The presence of a competing alternative bill adds further uncertainty about what any final legislation would actually contain. "Proposed" is not the same as "enacted."

Risks Foreign Intended Parents Should Take Seriously

Regulatory uncertainty is one layer of risk. Several others are independent of the proposed law and exist in the current framework.

Legislative transition risk. The bill's Transitional Provisions (Section VIII) establish a one-year implementation window from the date of official publication. However, the bill does not contain an explicit grandfather clause for already-signed contracts, ongoing programs, or frozen embryos currently in storage in Ukrainian clinics. Whether existing arrangements would be protected during that window remains legally unresolved — a gap that reproductive medicine experts, including the Vice President of the Ukrainian Association of Reproductive Medicine, have publicly flagged. Families beginning a program now without clear contractual language addressing legislative change are carrying unquantified exposure. No agency can make this risk disappear — but it can be mapped and documented.

Exit documentation by nationality. A Ukrainian birth certificate does not automatically confer citizenship or exit travel documents in most countries. The requirements differ significantly:

• U.S. families must apply for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) and a U.S. passport via the U.S. Embassy — a process that can add two to four weeks post-birth. Consular officers may require DNA testing to confirm parentage; this is not universal but should be budgeted for and confirmed with the embassy before travel.
• UK families must obtain an Emergency Travel Document to depart Ukraine and then apply for a Parental Order through UK courts upon return. Recent High Court rulings confirm that judges will rigorously scrutinize international arrangements to verify that the surrogate's welfare was protected throughout.
• German families face particular complexity: German law designates the woman who gives birth as the legal mother regardless of the Ukrainian certificate, meaning intended parents may face independent recognition proceedings, post-natal court rulings, or stepchild adoption on return.

For a detailed comparison of exit risks by country, see Ukraine vs. Georgia: Surrogacy Exit Risks Compared.

Wartime logistics. Ukrainian airspace has remained closed since 2022. Families must travel overland — most commonly via Poland into Lviv. Active conflict means curfews, intermittent power outages, air alerts, and the real possibility of shelter-in-place situations with a newborn. A BBC report cited interviewee accounts of delays affecting a large share of families — one source described it happening "about 80% of the time" — with waits stretching to weeks or months in some cases. For practical travel guidance, see Traveling to Ukraine for Surrogacy.

Child welfare gaps. The same legal provision that protects intended parents — the surrogate's complete absence of parental rights — creates a stateless child if parents cannot or do not collect their baby. This is not a hypothetical. Programs without documented, enforceable protocols for delay or abandonment scenarios are relying on the best case holding true.

A Practical Checklist Before Starting a Ukraine Surrogacy Program

The following questions should be answerable with documentation — not verbal assurance — before any agreement is signed. For full context on the program structure, see How It Works and Surrogacy Law in Ukraine.

• What does your home country's legal system require to recognize your Ukrainian birth certificate?
• What happens to frozen embryos stored in Ukraine if regulatory access changes before transfer?
• What are the current overland travel requirements for your nationality, and what is your entry plan?
• Has your agency provided a written exit-process timeline specific to your citizenship — not a generic one?
• Is all surrogate compensation and medical coverage documented in full, with no deferred or variable costs?
• What psychological and medical support does the surrogate receive throughout the pregnancy and post-birth?

Why Ethical Safeguards Matter More Than Ever

The concerns raised by the BBC report — surrogates recruited under economic duress, children left behind, inadequate cross-border accountability — are not arguments against Ukraine as a destination. They are arguments for requiring more from every program operating there.

Responsible surrogacy in any country depends on a small number of standards that cannot be negotiated away:

Surrogate welfare. Compensation should reflect the full physical and emotional demands of a gestational pregnancy. Recruitment should not systematically target women in acute economic crisis without independent psychological screening and independent legal counsel. Surrogates should have their own legal representation — separate from the agency's.

Child protection. Contracts should contain enforceable protocols for what happens if intended parents are delayed, incapacitated, or — in the worst case — do not come at all. "The surrogate holds no legal obligation" cannot be the only operational answer to that question.

Cross-border transparency. Intended parents from the U.S., UK, Germany, and the EU should understand — before embryo transfer — that returning home with their child requires a second legal process in their home country. The Ukrainian birth certificate is not the finish line. An agency that presents it as such is not fully representing what lies ahead.

These are not abstract ethical ideals. They are the conditions under which surrogacy can withstand legitimate regulatory scrutiny — including the kind that Draft Law №13683 is, in part, a response to.

How Responsible Planning Can Reduce Uncertainty

Uncertainty in international surrogacy is never fully eliminable. What responsible planning does is reduce its consequences. In the current environment, that means:

• Working with a program that monitors Ukrainian legislative developments and will proactively notify you of material changes
• Completing as much of the process as possible — genetic testing, embryo creation, matching — before a regulatory change could interrupt it
• Having home-country legal counsel review your path to parenthood independently before signing
• Mapping exit documentation requirements for your nationality before embryo transfer, not after birth

The current moment in Ukraine is not a crisis. It is a period of regulatory uncertainty that rewards preparation and penalizes assumptions. Families who do the documentation work now are in a fundamentally different position than those who rely on conditions remaining exactly as they are.

About Delivering Dreams

Delivering Dreams International Surrogacy Agency has guided U.S. and international families through Ukraine-based programs for over two decades. If you are assessing whether a Ukraine program is right for your situation — including your home-country legal path, current travel requirements, and contract protections — we can walk through the details specific to your case. Schedule a private consultation.