12/07/2021
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Only altruistic surrogacy is legal in the U.K. A surrogate mother can receive remuneration for reasonable expenses, however. Under UK nationality law, the mother and the father of a child are considered to be the woman who carries and gives birth and her husband (the man she is married to at the time of the child’s conception). Therefore, regardless of the fact that under Ukrainian law, both British intended parents will be recognized as legal parents of a child born via a surrogacy arrangement and their names will be indicated in the child’s Ukrainian birth certificate, UK authorities will recognize only the intended father’s parental rights (if there is a genetic connection to the child and the surrogate mother was not married at the time of embryo transfer) and an additional parental order in the UK to transfer legal rights from the surrogate mother to the intended mother will be required. If the surrogate mother was married at the time of embryo transfer, the parental order will be required for both commissioning parents, assigning paternity over to them and absolving the surrogate mother and her husband’s paternal responsibility for the child. Please note that there is only a short, fixed period in which commissioning parents can apply for a paternal order. This period starts 6 weeks after the child is born and ends 6 months after birth.
When the surrogate mother is single (unmarried, divorced, widowed):
The child has an automatic claim to British nationality if the commissioning father is British and has a genetic link to the child. In this case, the commissioning parents may apply for a British passport for the child. Normally, the whole process takes about one month.
When the surrogate mother is married:
In this case, the commissioning parents must first apply to register the child as a British citizen (by completing the MN1 form that is submitted to the Home Office via the embassy). The Home Office must be satisfied that:
at least one of the commissioning parents is a British citizen;
the surrogate parents have provided consent;
had the child been born to the commissioning couple, s/he would have had an automatic claim to British citizenship.
Once registration is complete, the commissioning parents may apply for a passport (a similar procedure as described above when the surrogate mother is single). The process of registering the child as a British citizen, followed by obtaining a passport, may take up to several months. Consequently, the commissioning parents should plan to remain in Ukraine for some time following the child’s birth.
Legal action upon returning home:
Usually, the commissioning parents must additionally apply for a parental order (not earlier than 6 weeks and not later than 6 months after the child’s birth) upon their return to the U.K., in order to transfer parental rights from the surrogate mother to the commissioning mother. Once completed, the British mother’s name will replace the Ukrainian surrogate in the child’s official documents.
In certain cases, (when the British commissioning father is not genetically related to the child or if the commissioning mother is the only British citizen), the commissioning parents may need to apply for a parental order before they may register their child as a British citizen and obtain travel documents (to get their child from Ukraine to the U.K.). Such cases require careful planning and specialist legal advice in the U.K. before any surrogacy arrangements are put in motion. This is done to avoid potential legal and organisational complications after the child is born.
You can find more information on our website https://fertilityukraine.com/getting-home/
