Donor eggs and donor sperm in India: the ART Act rules

Treatment with donor eggs or donor sperm is regulated more tightly in India than almost any other part of fertility care. Since the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, the law says who may donate, how often, through which kind of organisation, what the donor must be tested for, and what rights the donor keeps over any child. Much of what patients hear about donation, from friends, from forums or from abroad, does not match those rules.

This guide sets out what the Act says, section by section, and what it means in practice for someone considering donor treatment. It is written for patients and for the doctors who refer them. It does not tell you whether donor treatment is right for you, and it publishes no success rates and no prices, because this directory holds neither for any clinic. Everything it refers to can be looked up from the directory home.

Who counts as a donor

The Act defines a gamete donor as “a person who provides sperm or oocyte with the objective of enabling an infertile couple or woman to have a child.” Oocyte is the legal and medical word for an egg. A donor gives eggs or sperm for someone else's treatment, and that purpose is part of the definition.

The people who may receive donor treatment are defined too. The Act's “commissioning couple” is “an infertile married couple who approach an assisted reproductive technology clinic or assisted reproductive technology bank for obtaining the services authorised of the said clinic or bank”, and a woman, for the Act's purposes, is “any woman above the age of twenty-one years who approaches an assisted reproductive technology clinic or assisted reproductive technology bank for obtaining the authorised services of the clinic or bank.”

Donors come through a registered ART bank

The single most important rule is about who finds and screens donors. Section 27(1) says “The screening of gamete donors, the collection, screening and storage of semen; and provision of oocyte donor, shall be done only by a bank registered as an independent entity under the provisions of this Act.” Clinics are bound by the same rule from the other side. Section 21(b) says “the clinics shall obtain donor gametes from the banks and such banks shall ensure that the donor has been medically tested for such diseases as may be prescribed”.

In practice, that means a clinic should be able to name the registered ART bank it works with for donor eggs or sperm. Ask for that name. The Act also rules out the informal routes some people still describe: section 33(1)(g) says no one shall “use any intermediates to obtain gamete donors or purchase gamete donors.”

This directory lists the standalone ART banks recorded in the National ART & Surrogacy Registry extract alongside the clinics, and marks each one as an ART bank rather than a clinic. Where a city has a page of its own, the page counts its banks separately from its clinics, so you can see whether the extract records a bank there. Start from the clinics index, or go straight to a city such as Mumbai or Delhi.

Who may donate

The Act sets age limits for donors, and they differ for sperm and eggs. Under section 27(2), banks shall “obtain semen from males between twenty-one years of age and fifty-five years of age, both inclusive” and “obtain oocytes from females between twenty-three years of age and thirty-five years of age”. They must also “examine the donors for such diseases, as may be prescribed.”

A bank also has to know who its donors are. Section 27(6) requires it to obtain “all necessary information in respect of a sperm or oocyte donor, including the name”, the donor's Aadhaar number, address and other details, and to take a written undertaking from the donor about the confidentiality of that information. A donor in the Indian system is therefore identified to the bank, but that identity is held in confidence.

How often a donor may give, and to whom

The limits on egg donation are strict. Section 27(4) says “An oocyte donor shall donate oocytes only once in her life and not more than seven oocyte shall be retrieved from the oocyte donor.” Unused eggs are dealt with in section 27(5): “All unused oocytes shall be preserved by the banks for use on the same recipient, or given for research to an organisation registered under this Act after seeking written consent from the commissioning couple.”

A donor's gametes go to one family only. Section 27(3) says “A bank shall not supply the sperm or oocyte of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple.” The rules on how treatment is carried out reinforce this. Section 24(c) says “a woman shall not be treated with gametes or embryos derived from more than one man or woman during any one treatment cycle”, and section 24(d) that “a clinic shall never mix semen from two individuals for the procedures specified under this Act”.

These rules differ sharply from the UK's. The HFEA notes that in the UK a donor's eggs, sperm or embryos may be used by a limited number of families, and that a donor-conceived person can later ask it for identifying information about the donor. Indian law takes a different line on both points, so information written for UK patients is a poor guide to treatment here.

Protecting the egg donor

Egg donation involves stimulation and an egg collection, so the donor carries real medical risk. The Act requires insurance for her. Section 22(1)(b) says no treatment may go ahead without “an insurance coverage of such amount as may be prescribed for a period of twelve months in favour of the oocyte donor by the commissioning couple or woman”. The insurance is defined as a guarantee of compensation for “specified loss, damage, complication or death of oocyte donor during the process of oocyte retrieval”.

The donor is also a party to consent. The Act's explanation to section 22 says “parties” includes the commissioning couple or woman and the donor, so the donor's written consent is needed alongside yours. Section 33(1)(d) adds that no one shall “exploit the commissioning couple, woman or the gamete donor in any form”.

No buying or selling

The Act treats gametes as something that cannot be traded. Section 29 says “The sale, transfer or use of gametes, zygotes and embryos, or any part thereof or information related thereto, directly or indirectly to any party within or outside India shall be prohibited except in the case of transfer of own gametes and embryos for personal use with the permission of the National Board.” Section 33(1)(b) separately prohibits anyone to “sell human embryos or gametes, run an agency, a racket or an organisation for selling, purchasing or trading in human embryos or gametes”, and section 33(1)(c) prohibits importing them. If anyone offers you a donor in a way that sounds like a purchase, or offers imported donor sperm or eggs, treat that as a warning.

Parentage: the child is yours

For many people the most important question is who the parents are. The Act answers it directly. Section 31(1) says “The child born through assisted reproductive technology shall be deemed to be a biological child of the commissioning couple and the said child shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges available to a natural child only from the commissioning couple under any law for the time being in force.” Section 31(2) says “A donor shall relinquish all parental rights over the child or children which may be born from his or her gamete.”

The clinic also has a duty to explain this. Under section 21(d), “the clinics shall make commissioning couple or woman, aware of the rights of a child born through the use of assisted reproductive technology”. How and when to talk to a child about donor conception is a personal decision. The HFEA's advice is that “Using donated sperm, eggs or embryos is a major decision and you should take your time to think about whether it’s right for you.” Counselling before treatment is part of what the clinic must provide.

Storage of donor eggs and sperm

Donor material that is frozen has a fixed limit. Section 28(2) says “The gamete of a donor or embryo shall be stored for a period of not more than ten years and at the end of such period such gamete or embryo shall be allowed to perish or be donated to a research organisations registered under this Act for research purposes with the consent of the commissioning couple or individual, in such manner as may be prescribed.” If you hope to use the same donor's material for a second child, ask the clinic how that fits within the Act's limits before you begin. The guide to egg freezing and fertility preservation covers storage and consent for your own eggs and sperm.

Which clinic can do donor treatment

Donor sperm can be used in IUI as well as IVF, but treatment with donor eggs means IVF, because the eggs are fertilised in the laboratory and the resulting embryo is transferred. That is Level 2 work, so the clinic needs a Level 2 registration. The guide to clinic levels explains what each level covers, and the egg donation and sperm donation pages describe each treatment. Pages such as egg donation in Delhi and egg donation in Mumbai list the clinics in a city that name the treatment on their own website. That is the clinic's own statement, so the questions below still apply.

Questions to ask a clinic about donor treatment

• Which registered ART bank supplies your donor eggs or sperm, and can you see its registration?
• What has the donor been tested for, and will you receive a record of it?
• What information about the donor will you be given, and what is kept confidential?
• For egg donation, who arranges the donor's insurance, and what does it cover?
• What consent forms will you, your partner and the donor sign, and can you read them in advance?
• What counselling does the clinic offer before you decide?
• If treatment leaves spare embryos, what are your options under the Act?

For doctors referring a patient

A referral for donor treatment should go to a Level 2 clinic that can name the registered bank it works with. Each clinic page in this directory shows the registration number recorded in the registry extract and, where the extract records one, the level, and the extract records the standalone ART banks as separate listings. A clinic's own registration is not a bank registration, so ask which bank it uses. The fertility doctors index and the treatments index help with the rest of the referral, and the guide to choosing a clinic covers the wider checks.

Where this guide comes from

Statements about the law are quoted from the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021. Statements about donor treatment in general are drawn from the patient pages of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), and where UK and Indian law differ, the Indian text is quoted. Many details in the Act, such as the diseases donors are tested for and the insurance amount, are left to rules made under it, and those rules can change, so check the current position with the clinic and the bank. Facts about clinics and banks come from the National ART & Surrogacy Registry extract this directory holds and from each clinic's own website. Nothing in this guide is clinical or legal advice, and nothing in it is sponsored.