Most people who end up having IVF abroad did not start by searching for it. They started by finding out what a cycle costs at home. The measured search data says so plainly: far more people look for cheap IVF than for IVF abroad. Treatment overseas is not a separate decision — it is what the cost question turns into once you have the real numbers, and this site exists to give you those numbers before anyone sells you anything.
Start with the money, because everyone else does
How much does IVF cost?
The honest breakdown: what the quoted figure covers, what medication adds, and why a cycle and a baby are different purchases.
Cheap IVF: what you actually get
Low-cost clinics, mini-IVF, package deals and treatment abroad. Which ones are genuinely cheaper and which just move the cost.
Egg donation abroad
The real reason most people cross a border: donor availability, waiting lists and anonymity rules that differ by country.
The two destinations we cover
We write about the places where the demand actually is, not every clinic in the world. For English-speaking patients that has been one country for a decade, and the search data is not subtle about it.
IVF Cyprus
The established route for British and Irish patients. Two jurisdictions, short waiting lists, and a market that already has household-name clinics.
IVF Turkey
Large, strictly regulated, and much less visible in English search than its clinic count suggests. Who it fits and who it does not.
A finding worth stating up front, because it contradicts a lot of marketing: in measured English search, Cyprus is the IVF destination and Turkey is barely searched for at all. That tells you about visibility, not about quality — Turkish clinics treat enormous numbers of patients. But if you are weighing where other English-speaking patients have gone before you, the honest answer is Cyprus.
How to judge a clinic before you judge a price
- Ask for outcomes per cycle started, not per transfer
Per-transfer rates quietly exclude everyone who never reached transfer — which is exactly the group most at risk of treatment failing. Ask for live birth per cycle started, for your age band, from the clinic's own most recent full year.
- Ask what the quote excludes
Medication is the usual omission and it is not small. Then ICSI, freezing, the first year of storage, and the frozen transfer itself. A package price and an itemised estimate are different documents until you make them comparable.
- Price the second cycle before you buy the first
IVF is rarely a single purchase. The clinic that is cheapest for one cycle is often not the cheapest for two, and knowing the repeat price in advance changes the ranking more often than people expect.
Where we go deeper than anyone
This site began as a reference on sex selection with IVF, and that remains the part we document in the most detail — including a country-by-country legal page where every row says how far we verified it, with the statute named. It is a narrow subject that attracts an unusual amount of confident nonsense, so we read the primary texts ourselves.
Tell us what you are weighing up
Your age, where you live, and any quote you already have. You will get a written reply with the arithmetic for your situation and what to ask a clinic. If an introduction we make leads to treatment, we may be paid a referral fee.
Ask a questionIs IVF abroad cheaper?
Usually, and by a wide margin per cycle. Whether it is cheaper for you depends on what the package excludes — medication especially — and on how many cycles you need. Compare a complete attempt, with medication and the frozen transfer included, plus travel, and then compare again at two cycles.
Where do most English-speaking patients go for IVF abroad?
Cyprus, by a wide margin in measured search demand, principally from the UK and Ireland. Spain dominates the equivalent demand from France. Turkey treats very large numbers of patients but is far less visible in English-language search.
Is IVF abroad safe?
The question is not the country, it is the clinic and the regulator behind it. Ask which authority licenses the clinic, what accredits its laboratory, and for outcome data per cycle started from its own most recent full year. A clinic that cannot produce those is a risk anywhere.
What is the catch with cheap IVF?
Usually scope rather than quality: fewer embryos tested, medication excluded, or a single cycle priced against a treatment that typically needs more than one. Sometimes it is a cheaper laboratory, which is the one place not to economise.