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IVF abroad: compare the whole trip, not just the clinic price

A lower package price can disappear into medication, extra visits and another flight. Price the same treatment plan, travel and follow-up before booking.

The UK regulator HFEA advises comparing like with like and including travel and living costs. A foreign package is not automatically the same purchase as a US cycle.

More retrievals does not necessarily mean more transfers

Ferticentro in Portugal lists its Standard IVF package at €5,300 for one complete cycle including one transfer, and Premium at €7,450 for two stimulations and fertilisation but still one transfer. Both exclude medication, embryo storage and maintenance, additional transfers and PGT.

The difference is €7,450 − €5,300 = €2,150. It buys a different retrieval/stimulation offer, not another included transfer. If you may return for a frozen transfer, price that procedure and return trip separately instead of treating the larger package as a complete multi-attempt budget.

Serum in Greece lists its own-egg IVF/ICSI cycle at €3,600, including scans, collection, blastocyst culture and transfer, but not medication or blood tests. It lists a €20 committee fee per transfer and separate freezing/storage and later frozen-transfer charges. That lower headline is not the same purchase as Ferticentro's packages, and neither includes your flights, stay or home follow-up.

These are named published offers in their original currencies, not a ranking of countries or a prediction of your total. Ask for the package that fits your clinical plan, then price the less convenient scenario too: an extended stay, a postponed transfer or a second trip.

Ask for a costed treatment plan

Get the quote in its original currency. Ask about medication, monitoring, anesthesia, laboratory work, genetic testing, freezing, storage and transfer.

Confirm how many retrievals and transfers are included. Ask what happens if no embryos are available, a cycle stops or you need a later frozen transfer. Check cancellation terms before buying flights.

Add travel, accommodation, time off work, local transport and an allowance for an extended stay or return visit. Keep exchange-rate and payment fees separate from the clinic quote.

Plan who looks after you at home

Ask the overseas clinic and your home clinician who orders and interprets monitoring, who sends medication instructions and who handles complications or urgent questions.

CDC's medical-tourism guidance recommends arranging follow-up before traveling and obtaining records to bring home. Check whether your insurance covers overseas care or complications; do not assume a travel policy includes planned fertility treatment.

Confirm language support and the records you will receive, including laboratory and medication information.

Arrange home monitoring before the trip. An overseas order is not confirmation that a local office will draw blood, perform the required scan or return results in the treating team's timeframe. Ask both sides to confirm the services, result format, same-day cutoff and who interprets them. Keep those local charges outside the foreign clinic's headline until quoted.

Check rules and outcomes separately from price

Ask which regulator oversees the clinic, what patient protections apply and where a complaint goes. For donor treatment, embryo storage or moving material across borders, ask about the rules in both countries before paying.

When a clinic quotes success, ask whether it means pregnancy or live birth, which patients were counted and whether it starts at retrieval or transfer. Do not compare unlike percentages or treat included technology as proof of better care.

Compare clinic-published packages abroad → · Read success rates →

Last updated: November 6, 2026