Donor Eggs and Sperm: Age Limits, Banks and Anonymity in India

Only a registered bank may supply them, and only within fixed ages. Section 27(1) of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021 reserves donor screening, the collection and storage of semen and the provision of an egg donor to a bank registered as an independent entity under the Act. Section 27(2) sets the ages: semen from men between 21 and 55, both inclusive, and eggs from women between 23 and 35.

Three further limits in the same section are rarely spelled out:

• An egg donor may donate only once in her life, and not more than seven eggs may be retrieved from her (s.27(4)).
• A bank may not supply the sperm or egg of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple (s.27(3)).
• The bank must screen donors for diseases that rules under the Act specify, and must hold the donor's name, Aadhaar number and address with a written confidentiality undertaking (s.27(2)(c), s.27(6)).

No to both. Section 2(b) makes the bank, not the clinic, responsible for collecting, storing and supplying gametes, and s.21(b) obliges the clinic to obtain them from such a bank, which must have medically tested the donor. The informal routes are offences: s.33(1)(g) prohibits using intermediates to obtain or purchase gamete donors, s.33(1)(b) prohibits running an agency or racket for trading in gametes, and s.29 prohibits selling or transferring gametes at all, apart from moving your own for your own use with the National Board's permission.

Those penalties fall on the clinic, the bank and its executive head rather than on you: a fine of five to ten lakh rupees for a first contravention, and three to eight years' imprisonment with a fine of ten to twenty lakh for a later one (s.33(2)).

So ask which registered bank supplied the gametes, and expect the answer on the consent paperwork rather than in conversation. A clinic that finds a donor for you, or introduces one through an agent, is not doing what s.27(1) describes.

No, and the Act gives you no route to find out later. The information exists, because s.27(6) requires the bank to hold the donor's name, Aadhaar number and address. Section 21(e) then requires information about the commissioning couple, the woman and the donor to be kept confidential, and permits disclosure to no one except the National Registry database, in a medical emergency at the request of the commissioning couple to whom the information relates, or by order of a court.

Matching is done by the bank on criteria you do not see, and a child born from the donation has no statutory way of asking who the donor was on reaching adulthood. ESHRE's 2022 good practice recommendations on reproductive donation cover information for donors, intended parents and donor-conceived offspring in 91 recommendations, but that is guidance, not Indian law.

Grief about the genetic link is a common reaction here, not a sign the decision is wrong, and it belongs in the counselling the clinic owes you under s.21(c).

Section 22(1)(a) prohibits any treatment without the written informed consent of all the parties seeking ART, and the explanation to s.22 counts the donor among those parties. Section 21(c) sets out what must precede the signature: counselling on the implications and chances of success, the advantages, disadvantages and cost of the procedures, and their side effects and risks including multiple pregnancy.

Donor treatment adds two obligations:

• Twelve months of insurance in favour of the egg donor, taken out by the commissioning couple or woman from an insurer recognised by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (s.22(1)(b)). The explanation to s.22 describes it as cover for loss, damage, complication or death of the egg donor during retrieval; the amount sits in rules under s.42(2)(p), not in the Act.
• Freezing anything needs specific written consent covering the death or incapacity of any of the parties (s.22(2)).

Section 21(d) adds a duty to explain the rights of a child born through ART, s.22(4) lets either of the commissioning couple withdraw consent before transfer, and s.21(h) entitles you to a discharge certificate. Our article on consent under the ART Act covers the general rules, including the age limits that apply to you rather than to the donor.

Yes, with no waiting period and no adoption step. Section 31(1) deems a child born through ART the biological child of the commissioning couple, entitled to all the rights of a natural child and only from that couple, and s.31(2) requires the donor to relinquish all parental rights over any child born from his or her gamete.

Who counts as a commissioning couple is narrower than people expect. Section 2(e) defines it as an infertile married couple, infertility being the inability to conceive after a year of unprotected coitus or another proven medical condition (s.2(j)). Section 2(u) separately defines a "woman" as any woman above 21 who approaches a clinic or bank. The Act sets out no category for an unmarried couple. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021 has its own eligibility rules.

Two prohibitions are absolute, and breaching either is an offence rather than a service. Section 25(1) confines embryo testing to screening for known, pre-existing, heritable or genetic diseases only.

Section 26(1), expressly subject to the PC&PNDT Act 1994, forbids a clinic from offering a couple or woman a child of a pre-determined sex, and s.26(3) forbids anyone from knowingly providing, prescribing or administering anything that would make an embryo more likely to be of a particular sex, or that would identify the sex of an in-vitro embryo, except to diagnose, prevent or treat a sex-linked disorder. Section 32 forbids advertising such facilities, including online, and carries five to ten years' imprisonment or a fine of ten to twenty-five lakh rupees, or both. Section 45 puts the ART Act in addition to the PC&PNDT Act 1994, not in derogation of it.

Yes, mainly hypertensive risk, and it is the part of the counselling duty in s.21(c)(ii) most often skipped. The DONOR individual participant data meta-analysis, published in Human Reproduction Update in 2026, pooled participant-level data from 16 cohorts covering 2,747 egg-donation pregnancies versus 4,699 IVF or ICSI and 33,323 naturally conceived pregnancies, adjusted for maternal age, parity and multiple gestation. For pre-eclampsia it reported an adjusted odds ratio of 2.28 (95% CI 1.88 to 2.78) on a one-stage analysis and 2.39 (95% CI 1.94 to 2.94) on a two-stage analysis, the latter rated high certainty with no heterogeneity detected between cohorts. The raised risk held in every subgroup examined.

The 2024 ESHRE guideline on premature ovarian insufficiency takes the same practical position: egg donation is an established option after a POI diagnosis, and egg-donation pregnancies are high risk and should be managed in an appropriate obstetric unit, with the origin of the pregnancy disclosed to the obstetric team. If POI is why donor eggs were raised with you, our article on premature menopause and fertility covers the diagnosis.

Section 23 requires clinics and banks to keep detailed records of all donor eggs, sperm and embryos used or unused, to hold them for at least ten years and then pass them to the National Registry's central database, and to pass them over immediately if the clinic or bank closes early.

Recourse then runs through two doors. Section 21(f) requires every clinic and bank to maintain a grievance cell, with the complaint procedure left to rules under s.42(2)(n). Section 35(1) bars any court from taking cognizance of an offence except on a complaint by the National Board, a State Board or an officer it authorises, so a prosecution runs through those bodies rather than directly.

For a donor cycle this is the part most likely to affect you. Start with storage. Section 28(2) reads: