First, contact a fertility clinic

If you’re considering donating eggs or sperm, you should contact a fertility clinic to find out what’s involved.

Find fertility clinics in your area

Donate sperm

To become a sperm donor, you generally have to:

• be between 20 and 45
• have a good sperm count
• undergo several rounds of blood tests
• release non-identifying information to potential recipients to help them choose who to use as a sperm donor
• agree to release identifying information about yourself to any children conceived from your sperm (this is a legal requirement).

You also have to have 2 counselling sessions before you can donate sperm. These are usually with a counsellor at the fertility clinic. If you’re in a relationship, it is a good idea to bring your partner.

You can choose to put restrictions on who can use your sperm.

Most clinics do not use your sperm for more than 5 families, or you can choose to restrict it to less than 5. If you’re making the donation to a person or couple you know, you may want only them to use your sperm.

Donate eggs

To become an egg donor, you generally have to:

• be between 20 and 37
• be a non smoker
• have a Body Mass Index in the healthy range
• agree to release identifying information about yourself to any children conceived from your eggs (this is a legal requirement).

As part of the egg donation process, you'll have:

• a number of blood tests
• ultrasound scans to check your reproductive system
• IVF treatment to stimulate egg production
• surgery to harvest your eggs.

You also have to have at least two counselling sessions. These are usually with a counsellor at the fertility clinic. If you’re in a relationship, it is a good idea to bring your partner.

You can choose to put restrictions on who can use your eggs.

If you become a donor

If you become a donor, you have to provide identity information to the fertility clinic, and this information will be included on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (HART) register if a child is born from your donation.

The HART register lets people conceived from donated embryos, eggs or sperm find out about their genetic origins and ask to find out about any others conceived from the same donor.

Donors can ask to find out the name of any children born from their donation, but the child has to be 18 or older and give permission.

Finding a child or parent on the sperm and egg donor register