Use this 14-stage record to review the process, costs, timing, parentage steps, and open questions. Answer five questions to compare it with your situation.
Your key questions
Start with the answer to your question. Open source details only when you need to inspect the evidence boundary.
Review the published 14-stage process and sources, then use the checks below for parentage and return-home questions specific to your situation.
As of 2026-07-11 | G2 review limited | 9 source references.
Official payment and expense rules are available below, but no complete public total-budget range has been reviewed for this route.
As of 2026-07-11 | G2 review limited | No source-backed range attached.
No complete public timeline range has been reviewed for this route.
As of 2026-07-11 | G3 source gap | No source-backed range attached.
Destination parentage steps and home-country recognition must both be confirmed for the selected jurisdiction and family context.
As of 2026-07-11 | G2 review limited | 9 parentage source references.
Recommended next step
Answer five intended-parent questions to compare reviewed destinations, documented cases, budget and timing evidence, and the checks that apply to your facts.
NZ-NAT
Check required
Route-specific gates, sources, and unknowns. General industry guidance lives in the journey guide.
Confirm the domestic IVF, ECART, and adoption route
Confirm that the proposal is domestic clinic-assisted IVF surrogacy, that the fertility procedure is the best or only opportunity rather than a convenience or gain pathway, and that every party can complete ECART and the current post-birth adoption process. Screen family structure, residence intentions, legal-parent status at birth, adoption eligibility, consent, genetic-identity planning, and citizenship on the actual facts. Do not apply this template to traditional, private, or international arrangements.
Choose a New Zealand fertility clinic able to assess and support the proposal, coordinate counselling and the anonymous ECART application, and identify the current committee timetable and deferral process. The intended parents first request an Oranga Tamariki preliminary suitability assessment and obtain the letter required in the ECART file. ECART approval is a pre-treatment gate, not a general approval of every later adoption or birth outcome.
Assign the fertility clinic and ECART coordinator, separate independent legal advisers, individual and joint counsellors, independent medical advisers, Oranga Tamariki social worker, obstetric and hospital teams, intended-parent adoption lawyer, birth-registration contact, and Citizenship Office contact if status is uncertain. Record ownership for each consent, report, approval, medical decision, placement step, court filing, and civil document.
Complete clinic assessment of fertility need, gamete and embryo inventory, donor status, infectious-disease and genetic testing, storage, transport, consent, embryo disposition, and treatment risks. Explain the genetic and gestational relationships to Oranga Tamariki and ECART and document how the child will learn and access genetic-origin and birth-story information. Genetics alone does not make an intended parent a legal parent at birth.
Identify a willing gestational carrier through a non-commercial pathway and document the relationship, motivations, voluntariness, absence of undue influence, partner and household context, future contact, and expectations for care and adoption. Do not pay a carrier fee or valuable consideration for participation, and do not pay a person to arrange another person's participation. Matching does not create an enforceable obligation to transfer the child or consent to adoption.
Complete separate medical advice and health assessment for all relevant parties, individual and joint counselling, independent legal advice, consent and coercion review, household and existing-child discussion, pregnancy and termination decision planning, embryo-disposition discussion, future contact, and child-identity planning. Preserve the carrier's medical decision-making and ensure each person can withdraw where law and treatment consent permit.
Prepare a statement of intentions covering treatment, pregnancy decisions, communication, records, expenses, care immediately after birth, guardianship, adoption, consent, contact, genetic identity, death or separation, disputes, and changed circumstances. Each party receives independent legal advice. State clearly that the surrogacy arrangement is unenforceable and cannot compel the carrier to surrender the child or give adoption consent after birth.
Start from no valuable consideration for participating in or arranging surrogacy. Classify each proposed payment against the narrow section 14(4) exceptions for necessary embryo or gamete services, counselling, insemination or IVF, ovulation or pregnancy tests, and independent legal advice to the woman who is or may become pregnant. Do not infer a broad carrier-expense, travel, childcare, wage-loss, insurance, allowance, or agency-fee safe harbour from general guidance wording.
Before medication and transfer, verify ECART approval for the current parties and proposal, clinic acceptance, all consents, medical clearance, counselling and legal completion, embryo identity, donor and storage records, treatment protocol, and section 14 payment controls. Route material changes in parties, embryos, donors, residence, health, consent, or care plans back through the clinic and ECART rather than assuming approval continues.
Coordinate prenatal care, privacy, communication, support, emergencies, complications, pregnancy decisions, hospital planning, newborn care, and lawful direct service payments while preserving the carrier's consent. After conception and before birth, provide Oranga Tamariki with the clinic letter confirming pregnancy and genetic relationships, update circumstances, and complete the full adoptive-applicant assessment, including identity, attachment, police, child-protection, medical, reference, and home information.
Plan delivery on the basis that the carrier and her consenting partner, if applicable, are legal parents at birth and the intended parents have no automatic parental authority. Confirm who makes newborn decisions, who registers the birth, and how care transfers. If the carrier is not a sister or sister-in-law of an applicant, obtain the social worker's prior placement approval before the intended parents take the child home; secure pre-birth intent and post-birth confirmation for the approval, which is valid for 28 days.
The carrier and her consenting partner where applicable remain the legal parents at birth and register the baby, ordinarily within two months. Gamete providers do not gain parental status solely from genetics, and ECART approval does not place intended parents directly on the initial certificate. Obtain the initial birth record, preserve clinic and genetic evidence, and prepare adoption consent and the intended parents' Family Court application after birth.
For a child born in New Zealand on or after 1 January 2006, citizenship by birth requires at least one legal parent at birth to be a New Zealand citizen or entitled to remain in New Zealand indefinitely, subject to statutory exceptions. Do not use intended-parent genetics alone as the citizenship basis before adoption. Confirm the carrier and any other legal parent's status, the birth record, adoption effect, and passport authority directly with the Citizenship Office when facts are unusual.
After birth, obtain the birth mother's consent and the partner's consent where required, file through the Family Court, support the requested Oranga Tamariki social-work report, and establish that the applicants are fit and proper and adoption promotes the child's welfare and interests. A final adoption order transfers legal parenthood and produces a new birth certificate naming the intended parents. Preserve the original birth, genetic-origin, clinic, ECART, counselling, placement, court, and identity records for the child.
