Egg Donation Laws in Canada: A Guide for Intended Parents and Donors (2026)

Is egg donation legal in Canada?

Yes. Egg donation is legal across Canada and happens at fertility clinics in every province. What Canadian law prohibits is paying for eggs.

The governing statute is the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), passed in 2004. Section 7(1) makes it a criminal offence to "purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of sperm or ova from a donor or a person acting on behalf of a donor." The Act defines "purchase" broadly — it includes acquiring eggs in exchange for property or services, not just cash.

These are real criminal penalties, not administrative fines. Under section 60 of the AHRA, a conviction on indictment carries a fine of up to $500,000, up to 10 years in prison, or both (up to $250,000 and four years on summary conviction). The first prosecution under the Act came in 2013, when Leia Picard and her Ontario company, Canadian Fertility Consultants, pleaded guilty to offences that, as reported by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, included paying women $5,000 per egg donation; she and the company were fined a combined $60,000.

So the legal model in Canada is altruistic donation: a donor gives her eggs as a gift, and the only money that may change hands is the receipted reimbursement of her actual out-of-pocket expenses.

What the law prohibits — and what it allows

Prohibited:

• Paying a donor for her eggs, in cash or in kind (gifts, services, free treatment in exchange for eggs can all count as "purchase")
• Offering to pay, or advertising that you will pay
• Paying someone acting on the donor's behalf (e.g., an agency selling you a Canadian donor's eggs)

Allowed:

• Altruistic egg donation — known, open-ID, or anonymous
• Reimbursing a donor's eligible out-of-pocket expenses, with receipts, under the federal Reimbursement Regulations (details below)
• Donor-egg IVF itself, at any Canadian clinic, with eggs from a known donor, a Canadian altruistic donor, or a properly imported egg bank
• Donors receiving free counselling, independent legal advice, and medical care related to the donation, since these are eligible reimbursable services

One practical consequence intended parents should understand early: because Canadian donors cannot be compensated, very few women come forward to donate to strangers within Canada. Most Canadian donor-egg cycles therefore use either a known donor (a friend, relative, or someone met through a matching program who donates altruistically) or frozen eggs imported from a US or international egg bank.

Known, open-ID, and anonymous donors

Canada has no national donor registry. The AHRA as passed in 2004 contained provisions for a federal registry of donor information, but they were never brought into force: the Supreme Court of Canada found much of that scheme unconstitutional in its 2010 reference decision, and Parliament repealed the sections in 2012 before they ever took effect. Outside Québec, no Canadian law currently guarantees a donor-conceived person access to their donor's identity.

The three donor types you'll encounter:

• Known (directed) donor: Someone you know — a sister, cousin, or friend — donating directly to you. Health Canada's rules call this a "directed donation," and the donor must still go through screening and testing.
• Open-ID (identity-release) donor: Common with US egg banks. The donor agrees that the child can receive her identifying information, typically at age 18.
• Anonymous donor: Still legal in most of Canada. That said, clinic counsellors and donor-conceived advocacy groups widely caution that anonymity is effectively obsolete in the era of consumer DNA testing.

Legally, the high-water mark for donor-conceived rights litigation remains Pratten v. British Columbia (2012 BCCA 480), where the BC Court of Appeal held there is no free-standing constitutional right to know one's biological origins. (The court allowed the province's appeal in full and set aside the trial-level order — including the injunction that had temporarily protected existing donor records from destruction.)

Québec is the exception, and it's a big one. As part of its family-law reform (Bill 12, assented to June 6, 2023), Québec created the Register of Origin Information in Procreation Involving a Third Person, whose rules came into force on June 6, 2025 (with the register fully established as of June 6, 2026). For donations made on or after June 6, 2025, the donor's identity is accessible to the donor-conceived person — donors can refuse to have their contact information shared, but cannot veto disclosure of their identity. Donor-conceived people can apply from age 14 (children under 14 apply with the consent of their parents or tutor). For donations made before June 6, 2025, the donor's identity stays confidential unless the donor consents to disclosure. Anyone donating in Québec today is, by law, an identifiable donor.

Using a US or international egg bank from Canada

Here's the part that surprises many intended parents: even though buying eggs is criminal in Canada, Canadian clinics routinely use frozen donor eggs from US egg banks — and this is the most common route to donor-egg IVF in Canada. Fertility-law commentators estimate that the large majority (often cited as 90–95%) of donor gametes used in Canada are sourced from abroad.

How does that square with section 7? The prohibition targets purchasing eggs "from a donor or a person acting on behalf of a donor." Health Canada's own guidance on the prohibitions states that the Act does not prohibit "buying sperm or eggs from a person other than the donor provided the person is not acting on behalf of the donor," and that fertility clinics and gamete banks may charge fees for their services. When you buy frozen eggs from a foreign egg bank, you are purchasing from the bank — a commercial entity that has already lawfully acquired the eggs in its own jurisdiction — not from the donor or her agent, and Canadian fertility lawyers read the Act the same way. This specific application has never been definitively tested in a Canadian court, so clinics and lawyers proceed carefully — but it is open, established practice across the country.

The imported eggs must still meet Canadian safety law. Under the Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations (in force 2020), imported donor eggs must be processed by a primary establishment registered with Health Canada, and the Canadian importer must notify Health Canada before importing. In practice, the major US egg banks that serve Canadian patients maintain Health Canada registration, and your clinic will only work with compliant banks.

Two cautions:

• You cannot lawfully sidestep section 7 by, say, paying a Canadian donor through a US intermediary. The prohibition follows the substance of the transaction, not the geography of the bank account.
• If you travel abroad for a compensated donor cycle, the treatment happens under that country's law — but get Canadian legal advice first, especially about bringing embryos or eggs back.

What donors can be reimbursed for

Since June 9, 2020, the Reimbursement Related to Assisted Human Reproduction Regulations (SOR/2019-193) have spelled out exactly what an egg donor may be reimbursed for. Section 2 lists the eligible categories:

• Travel expenses: transportation, parking, meals, and accommodation
• Care of dependants or pets while the donor attends appointments or recovers
• Counselling services
• Legal services and disbursements (donors should have their own lawyer)
• Drugs and devices (e.g., stimulation medications, if not otherwise covered)
• Products or services recommended in writing by a physician (for donors, the regulations require the recommendation to come from a person authorized to practise medicine) — plus the cost of obtaining that written recommendation
• Health, disability, travel, or life insurance related to the donation
• Obtaining or confirming medical or other records

The rules are strict on process: reimbursement requires receipts and a signed, dated declaration from the donor confirming the expenses were actually incurred for the donation. Mileage for the donor's own car is reimbursed at the Canada Revenue Agency automobile allowance rate. Round-figure "expense allowances" without receipts are not permitted — that's treated as payment.

One important limit: under the Regulations, reimbursement for lost work-related income is available only to surrogates (with a medical certificate), not to egg donors. An egg donor who takes unpaid days off for retrieval cannot lawfully be reimbursed for those lost wages. Many fertility lawyers consider this a gap in the rules, but it is the current law.

Parentage: the donor is not a parent

A consistent principle runs through Canadian provincial family law: donating eggs does not make you a parent, and intended parents who receive a donation are the child's legal parents. The donor has no parental rights and no support obligations. Province by province:

• Ontario: The All Families Are Equal Act, 2016 (in force January 1, 2017) rewrote the Children's Law Reform Act so that a person who provides reproductive material for another person's conception "is not, and shall not be recognized in law to be, a parent of the child" — unless they qualify as a parent under the Act's own parentage rules (for example, as the birth parent's spouse). Intention to parent, not genetics, governs.
• British Columbia: Section 24 of the Family Law Act states that a donor is not a parent by reason only of the donation and may not be declared a parent on that basis alone.
• Québec: The Civil Code's filiation rules provide that contributing genetic material to another person's parental project does not create any bond of filiation between the donor and the child. The 2023 family-law reform (Bill 12) modernized this entire area — confirming the donor's non-parent status, overhauling surrogacy filiation (new notarial process in force March 6, 2024), and creating the origins register described above.
• Other provinces have comparable provisions or case law; if you're in a province with older legislation, a fertility lawyer can confirm how parentage will be recorded.

Even though the statutes do the heavy lifting, clinics in Canada will generally require a written egg donation agreement, with independent legal advice for donor and intended parents, before a known-donor cycle proceeds. It documents consent, intentions, future contact, and what happens to unused eggs or embryos — and legal fees for it are reimbursable donor expenses.

What donor eggs cost in Canada

Because donors can't be paid, the money in a Canadian donor-egg cycle goes to the clinic, the egg bank, medications, and expenses — not to the donor. Based on Fertility Finder's Canadian clinic cost data, a donor egg cycle in Canada typically runs $15,000–$32,000, broken down roughly as:

• Frozen donor eggs from a Canadian or US bank: about $15,000–$25,000 for a standard lot of six eggs, plus shipping, thaw, fertilization, and transfer fees at your Canadian clinic.
• Fresh known-donor cycle: often $30,000+ all-in once you include the donor's screening, stimulation medications, retrieval, legal agreements, counselling, and receipted expense reimbursement — though a straightforward local known-donor cycle can come in well under that.
• Add the usual IVF extras on top: recipient medications (often $3,000–$6,000), ICSI, PGT-A if chosen, and embryo storage.

Provincial IVF funding programs (where they exist) generally apply to the IVF procedure itself, not to purchasing bank eggs — check your province's program rules and your clinic's quote carefully. Our cost calculator can help you estimate the IVF and add-on portion, and you can browse clinics that offer donor-egg programs.

Becoming an egg donor: what to expect

If you're considering donating — to a family member, a friend, or through a matching program — here's the shape of it:

• Eligibility: Canadian clinics and matching programs typically look for donors roughly between 19–21 and the early-to-mid 30s, in good health, with normal ovarian reserve. These cut-offs are clinic policy informed by Health Canada's donor suitability directive, not a statutory age limit.
• Screening: Federal law (the Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations) requires a full donor suitability assessment — a screening questionnaire, physical exam, infectious-disease testing, and genetic/medical history review — following Health Canada's technical directive. Infectious-disease testing for egg donors must be done on samples taken within 30 days before or 7 days after retrieval. Donated eggs stay in quarantine until the program's medical director confirms the donor's suitability.
• Counselling and legal advice: Expect mandatory implications counselling and your own independent lawyer (paid for as a reimbursable expense).
• The medical process: About 10–12 days of self-administered hormone injections with several monitoring visits (ultrasound and bloodwork), then egg retrieval — a short procedure under sedation, usually with a day or two of downtime.
• Money: You cannot be paid, full stop. You can be reimbursed, with receipts, for the expense categories listed above. You cannot be reimbursed for lost wages.
• Identity: In Québec, you will be an identifiable donor by law. Elsewhere, you choose anonymous, open-ID, or known donation — but go in assuming that DNA testing makes lifelong anonymity unlikely.