For married couples from France · Reviewed June 2026
France prohibits surrogacy at home and has never prosecuted parents for completing one abroad. The real French question lives in the civil registry: which parent gets transcribed, how the second parent is recognized, and what Strasbourg forced Paris to accept. We keep a full French version of this guide too — la version française est ici.
Three rules define the French position, and they are narrower than most couples fear:
After two decades of litigation — the Mennesson family's own case ran for fifteen years — the entries are now settled practice:
The foreign birth certificate is transcribed for the father whose paternity reflects biological reality — the standard set by Article 47 of the Code civil as revised by the 2021 bioethics law. With our program documents (apostilled certificate, genetic evidence), the transcription request is a paper exercise, handled with a French avocat.
The settled route for the mother — including the genetic mother — is adoption of the spouse's child, completing the family's status in France. The 2022 adoption reform simplified the procedure for married couples, and courts process surrogacy-born cases as a known category, guided by the child's interest and the Strasbourg case law.
Your child's French nationality follows from the French parent's established filiation, and travel documents are arranged through the consulate in the program country. Plan several weeks in-country after the birth for documents; we prepare the file before the birth so the consular stage starts immediately.
Ukraine writes intended parentage into Article 123 of its Family Code; Georgia has permitted it by statute since 1997; Armenia follows the same model. In all three, the birth certificate issues in your names from birth — the document on which the French transcription is later built.
Prices in US dollars, paid in milestones; details on the cost page, country comparison on the programs page. Consultations are available in French.
French parents who complete a lawful program abroad and return with authentic documents are not prosecuted — the criminal provisions aim at brokers operating in France and at falsified civil status, and the case law on recognition exists precisely because thousands of French families have come home openly. What Article 16-7 does is void surrogacy contracts within France; it does not reach your program in Kyiv, Tbilisi or Yerevan.
Yes, by two complementary steps: transcription of the foreign birth certificate for the genetic father, then adoption by the intended mother — the architecture French courts have applied since the Mennesson saga concluded. The full family status takes months rather than days, but the destination is no longer in doubt; that is what the 2014 Strasbourg rulings changed.
Because the 2021 bioethics law anchored transcription to the woman who gave birth, French practice routes the intended mother — genetic or not — through adoption instead. We will not pretend that asymmetry is fair; we can tell you it is predictable, well-mapped by French avocats, and resolved in the child's favor in the settled case law.
Yes — ideally before the embryo transfer, for an hour, to confirm the transcription-and-adoption plan against your specific facts. The heavy work comes after the birth, but the early conversation shapes details like which documents we order in duplicate. We work alongside French avocats regularly and will make the introduction.
Yes — the complete French guide, written for French readers rather than translated, is at novaparent-surrogacy.com/fr/families/france, and the consultation itself can be held in French. Andrew, our founder, works with French-speaking couples directly.
We will map the transcription-and-adoption plan against your medical situation and country preference, and send a written summary for your avocat. Paris evenings work well for us.
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. Version française : GPA pour les couples français.