For married couples from Australia · Reviewed June 2026
Australia has no single surrogacy law; it has eight. For residents of three jurisdictions, a paid program overseas is a criminal offense — and we say that in the first paragraph, not the fine print. For everyone else, the road abroad is open, well traveled, and ends with an Australian citizenship-by-descent application that thousands of families have completed.
These three jurisdictions make it a criminal offense for their residents to enter a commercial surrogacy arrangement anywhere in the world — the prohibition follows you across the border. Our programs are compensated programs. We will not take a couple into a program while that exposure exists, and any agency that waves it away is not protecting you. If this is your situation, speak to an Australian surrogacy lawyer first: some couples relocate, some pursue the domestic altruistic path, and some wait for reform. We would rather lose your booking than your trust.
The atlas · State by state
Every state allows altruistic surrogacy at home and every state makes commercial surrogacy an offense domestically. The split that matters to you is extraterritorial reach — whether your state's ban travels with you.
Extraterritorial criminal provisions
The Surrogacy Act 2010 (NSW), the Surrogacy Act 2010 (Qld) and the Parentage Act 2004 (ACT) each extend their commercial-surrogacy offenses to arrangements their residents enter overseas. Prosecutions have been rare — but "rarely prosecuted" is not a plan for your family, and we refuse to build one on it.
No extraterritorial offense
Residents of these jurisdictions commit no offense by joining a compensated program in a country where it is lawful and regulated. This is the group we work with — including the Adelaide family whose first-hand account is on our home page.
State law evolves; Western Australia in particular has been reforming its assisted-reproduction framework. Confirm your state's current position with an Australian lawyer before the embryo transfer — we will gladly coordinate with them and put the conclusion in writing.
Why abroad at all
Australian surrogates may only be reimbursed expenses, so very few women volunteer — most couples never find a match at all.
Counseling, legal advice, ethics approvals and the search itself routinely consume two or more years before a single embryo is transferred.
At home, the surrogate is the legal mother until a court transfers parentage — the reverse of our program countries, where you are the parents from the first minute by statute.
Ukraine (Article 123 of the Family Code), Georgia (statutory since 1997) and Armenia all put your names on the birth certificate at birth, with no revocation right for the surrogate. One flat price across all three:
Prices in US dollars, paid in milestones — details on the cost page, country comparison on the programs page.
The way home
Australia does not transcribe foreign parentage — it grants your child citizenship through you. The route is administrative, familiar to the Department of Home Affairs, and starts before the birth in our preparation.
Your child is born at the partner clinic; the birth certificate issues in your names. We arrange apostille and certified translations the same week.
You apply for Australian citizenship for your child as the child of an Australian citizen parent. In surrogacy cases Home Affairs looks to the parent–child relationship in substance — the genetic link, documented by DNA testing where requested, is the anchor, and we build that evidence into the program from the start.
Once citizenship is registered, you apply for your child's first Australian passport at the embassy. Plan on several weeks in-country after the birth across both steps; your coordinator manages the appointments.
State parentage-transfer orders are designed for domestic altruistic arrangements and are generally not available for compensated overseas programs. In practice families rely on the citizenship route plus the foreign birth certificate, and where extra certainty is wanted, Family Court parenting orders can allocate parental responsibility. Your Australian lawyer will tell you whether your situation needs that extra layer.
The questions
Not through a compensated program while you are an NSW resident — the extraterritorial offense is real, and we will not structure around it. Your lawful options are the domestic altruistic path, genuine relocation to a state without extraterritorial reach (a serious life decision, not a paperwork trick), or waiting for law reform. An Australian surrogacy lawyer can map these honestly; we are happy to speak with them, but we will not enroll you while the exposure stands.
Not automatically — by application. Citizenship by descent is granted to a child born overseas to an Australian citizen parent, and in surrogacy cases the genetic connection is the evidence Home Affairs relies on. Applications from our program countries are routine; the registration and first passport together usually keep families in-country several weeks after the birth.
Yours, from the outset. Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian law all treat the intended parents as the legal parents at birth; the surrogate has no parental claim and no statutory window to change her mind. That certificate, apostilled and translated, anchors the Australian citizenship application.
Yes, and we will say so plainly: we run the program, the clinic, the surrogate relationship and the documents abroad; an Australian lawyer confirms your state-law position before you start and advises on anything you want formalised at home. The Adelaide father whose account appears on our home page reported needing no further legal help in Australia — but his confirmation step still happened, and yours should too.
Both are well known to Australian authorities, and the price is identical. Couples who want the war question entirely off the table choose Tbilisi or Yerevan; couples who value the fastest registry — the certificate issues immediately — and don't mind the western-Ukraine logistics choose Lviv or Kyiv. We will walk through both in the consultation without steering you.
In the consultation we confirm your state-law position first, then the medical picture, then the country choice. You receive a written summary to take to an Australian lawyer. Early mornings AEST suit us fine.
Novaparent is an agency registered in Ukraine and works exclusively with married heterosexual couples with a medical indication. More about us in the founder's letter.