Surrogacy in Vietnam: Is It Legal?

Surrogacy is legal in Vietnam, but only in one narrow form. The law permits what it calls humanitarian surrogacy, an arrangement made out of altruism rather than for money, and it strictly bans surrogacy carried out for commercial gain. For a couple hoping surrogacy might be their path to a child, the real question is not whether it is allowed at all, but whether their situation fits the strict conditions the law sets.

These conditions are demanding, and they rule out the kind of arrangement many people picture when they think of surrogacy. Understanding where the line falls, between the surrogacy Vietnam permits and the surrogacy it prohibits, is the starting point for anyone considering this route.

Humanitarian Surrogacy Is Legal, Commercial Surrogacy Is Not

Vietnamese law divides surrogacy into two kinds and treats them in opposite ways.

Humanitarian surrogacy, sometimes called altruistic surrogacy, is where a woman voluntarily carries a pregnancy for a couple, without payment beyond the genuine costs of the pregnancy, because the wife is unable to carry a child even with the help of assisted reproduction. This is the form the law allows. Commercial surrogacy, where a woman carries a pregnancy for another person in exchange for money or other benefit, is expressly prohibited, and the ban is one of the clear prohibitions written into the Law on Marriage and Family. The distinction is not a matter of emphasis; it shapes the entire framework. Vietnam opened the door to surrogacy to help infertile families, and closed it firmly against surrogacy as a paid service.

Who Can Have a Child Through Surrogacy

The conditions on the couple seeking a surrogate, the intending parents, are specific. The law is written to confine surrogacy to genuine cases of infertility within a married family, and the main requirements are these:

The intending parents must be a legally married couple. Surrogacy is not open to unmarried individuals or couples.
The couple must have no common child. The arrangement is for couples who have not been able to have a child together, not a way to add to an existing family.
The wife must be medically unable to carry a pregnancy, even with assisted reproductive technology, confirmed by a competent medical body.
The child must be genetically the couple’s own. The embryo is created by in vitro fertilisation using the husband’s sperm and the wife’s egg, so the surrogate provides no genetic material and the child is biologically the intending parents’.

This point carries real weight. Because the embryo comes from the intending parents, the child born through surrogacy is genetically theirs, not the surrogate’s, which is central to how the child’s parentage is treated later.

Who Can Act as a Surrogate

The conditions on the surrogate are just as strict, and they are what most often place this route out of reach.

The surrogate must be a relative of the same bloodline as either the husband or the wife. A stranger, or someone found through an agency, cannot lawfully act as a surrogate in Vietnam. This single requirement is the one that surprises people most and rules out the majority of arrangements.
She must already have given birth to a child of her own.
She may act as a surrogate only once. A woman cannot be a surrogate more than one time.
Where she is married, her husband’s agreement is required.

The relative requirement is the heart of the restriction. Vietnam permits surrogacy within a family, an aunt, a cousin, a sister-in-law by blood, helping a couple who cannot carry a child, but it does not permit the open market in surrogacy that exists in some other countries.

The Agreement and the Medical Process

Humanitarian surrogacy is not only a private family understanding; it has to be put on a proper legal and medical footing.

The arrangement must be voluntary and set out in a written agreement, which is notarised. In practice the couple applies to a licensed facility, which examines the health of both the surrogate and the couple, confirms that the surrogate can carry a pregnancy, and provides medical, psychological, and legal counselling before the procedure goes ahead. Where the parties do not meet the health conditions, the facility must say so in writing, with reasons. The procedure may only be carried out at a medical facility licensed to perform surrogacy, of which there are a limited number in Vietnam.

The law also protects the people involved. The couple, the surrogate, and the child born through a humanitarian surrogacy are guaranteed privacy and confidentiality, so the arrangement is not something that has to be made public. This framework was refreshed by a government decree that took effect on 1 October 2025, updating the detailed medical and procedural rules, so anyone approaching surrogacy now should confirm the current requirements rather than rely on older descriptions.

Who Are the Legal Parents of the Child?

One of the most reassuring features of the law, for intending parents, is how it settles parentage. In an ordinary birth the woman who gives birth is treated as the mother, but surrogacy reverses that for a lawful humanitarian arrangement.

Where a child is born through a lawful humanitarian surrogacy, the child is legally the child of the intending couple, not of the surrogate, from the time of birth. The intending parents are the legal mother and father, and the surrogate does not hold parental status over the child she carried. This is what gives the arrangement its security: the couple who set out to become parents are recognised as the parents in law. From there, the practical steps follow, including registering the child’s birth, where a document proving the surrogacy is part of what the authorities require, and, in a cross-border family, settling the child’s nationality.

Surrogacy and Foreign or Mixed-Nationality Couples

For foreign couples, and for many mixed-nationality couples, the Vietnamese framework is difficult to use in practice, and it is worth being plain about why.

The requirement that the surrogate be a blood relative of one of the intending parents is the obstacle. A foreign couple with no relative in Vietnam able and willing to act as a surrogate simply cannot meet it, and because commercial surrogacy is banned, there is no lawful route to engage an unrelated surrogate for payment. Vietnam is, for this reason, not a destination for international commercial surrogacy, and arrangements that treat it as one are outside the law. A mixed-nationality couple where one spouse is Vietnamese may have more options, particularly where a qualifying relative exists, but even then the same strict conditions apply. Anyone in a cross-border situation should take careful advice before committing to any plan, because the consequences of an unlawful arrangement fall hardest on the child.

What This Means If You Are Considering Surrogacy

The position is that surrogacy in Vietnam is legal but narrowly confined. It is available to a married couple who cannot have a child together, using their own egg and sperm, with a blood relative willing to carry the pregnancy without payment, through a licensed medical facility and a notarised agreement. Where a family fits that description, the law provides a genuine and humane path to parenthood, and treats the resulting child as fully the couple’s own. Where it does not, particularly for couples relying on an unrelated or paid surrogate, the arrangement is not lawful in Vietnam, and pursuing it carries real legal risk.

If you are considering surrogacy and want to know whether your situation fits what Vietnamese law allows, our team of family lawyers can assess your circumstances, explain the conditions and the process, and prepare the agreement and documentation a lawful arrangement requires. You can reach us for a confidential consultation at [email protected].