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Practical guides · Treatment and donors

How can a single woman find a sperm donor?

There are three main routes. A sperm bank, through a clinic at home or abroad. A known donor: a man you know, or a man you meet online. Or a co-parent, who stays in the child’s life. Each route has its own risks, and the law is different in each country. Check the law where you live before you choose.

Checked November 2026For any country

This guide is published on the website of a man who offers to help a woman have a child: see the two options. The guide gives the facts as they are, whether or not they suit his offer. How these guides are written.

A sperm bank, through a clinic

A sperm bank gives the most health checks, but you need a clinic that is allowed to treat you. The UK fertility regulator (HFEA) says it is “always safer” to use donor sperm at a licensed clinic.

  • What it involves: the bank tests each donor and freezes his sperm. It uses the sperm only after the donor tests negative again, months later. A clinic then places the sperm inside you.
  • Choosing the donor: in some countries, you choose him from a description of his looks and health. In others, the clinic chooses for you. Spain and Norway work this way.
  • The law to check: in many countries, a clinic may treat a single woman. In others, the law allows only married couples. See donor sperm, country by country.
  • Waiting time: some clinics have long waits. In France, the average wait for treatment with donor sperm was 17.7 months in 2025. In New Zealand, a large clinic group says the wait for a donor it finds is about 4 years.

Can a bank abroad send sperm to your country?

Often yes, but usually only to a clinic, not to your home. Banks send frozen sperm to clinics in other countries. A large Danish bank says it takes 1 to 2 working days in Europe and 3 to 5 days elsewhere. The same bank says Danish law forbids sending donor sperm to a home address.

  • Some countries forbid it: India’s law bans bringing donor sperm into the country (ART Act 2021, s.33). Morocco allows imports only of a person’s own stored sperm or eggs (Law 47-14, art. 30).
  • Some allow it: in Israel, hospitals import sperm from banks abroad. In the UK, an NHS clinic’s price list includes donor sperm shipped in from a bank.

Ask the clinic two things: does it accept sperm from a bank abroad, and what does the shipping cost?

Treatment in another country

If no clinic in your country will treat you, you can be treated in a country whose law allows it. Some of these countries also accept a donor you bring yourself. Treatment abroad lists them and explains how to plan the time, the tests and the papers.

A man you know

A known donor can be a friend, or a man you have known for some time. You know more about his health and his character. Your child can know who he is.

  • Through a clinic: in some countries, he can give sperm at a clinic, with the same tests as any donor. The UK, Denmark and Belgium allow this. In others, clinics use only anonymous donors, such as Spain and France.
  • Outside a clinic: the law is very different from one country to another. In France, Greece and Portugal, insemination outside an authorised clinic is a crime. In Thailand, only a doctor may do it. Read your country’s entry before anything else.
  • The legal father: outside a clinic, a donor can be the child’s legal father in many countries, whatever you agreed. In the UK, the HFEA says a donor for a single woman at home “will be considered the legal parent”.

A donor you meet online

Some women meet a donor through a website, an app or a social media group that connects donors and women. These are not clinics. Nobody checks the men’s tests, or how many children they already have.

  • Many men offer sex: in a 2016 survey of 383 men on a UK website of this kind, 44% preferred “natural insemination”, meaning sex.
  • Many children: among the men in that survey who had children through the site, some had up to 10. About 1 in 9 did not know how many had been born.
  • Serial donors: in 2023, a Dutch court ordered one man to stop donating. At least 550 children were reported to have been conceived with his sperm.

The HFEA says apps, websites and social media that help “exploitative or serial sperm donors” expose people to “serious medical, legal, and emotional risks”. Ask a man how many children he already has from donations, and how many women he is helping now. You cannot check his answer. But a man who will not answer is a warning sign.

Co-parenting

In co-parenting, the man is not only a donor: he stays in the child’s life as a parent, in a way you agree. Many people find a co-parent through the same kind of website.

  • What people want: in a 2015 survey of 102 people on a UK website, the main reason was that both parents wanted to raise the child. Most women expected the child to live with them.
  • How families do: a small 2025 study of 23 co-parent families found parents and children doing well. It made no difference whether they met online or knew each other before.
  • The law: a co-parent is usually the legal father, or can become it. He then has rights, such as contact, and duties, such as child support. An agreement between you may not bind a court. In New Zealand, private agreements about donation are “not legally enforceable”. See the father’s name and child support.

How to stay safe when you meet a man online

Stay safe by checking who he is before you trust him, and by never paying him.

  • Talk on a live video call before anything else.
  • Search his photos. A reverse image search shows if they appear under another name.
  • Never send money, for a ticket, a test or an emergency.
  • Check his lab reports with the lab yourself.
  • Meet the first time in a public place, and tell a friend where you are.
  • Do not send intimate photos, or your documents, before you decide.
  • If he pushes for sex when you asked for insemination, stop.

The methods scammers use are in how to spot a scam.

What to check and agree before you try

Before you try, check three things: his tests, the law, and who will be the legal father.

  • Tests: ask for recent, dated lab reports for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis, and repeat them some weeks later. Do the same tests yourself. See tests to ask a donor for.
  • Is the method legal? Check the place where the insemination will happen, at a clinic or not. See donor sperm, country by country.
  • The legal father: check whether he can be the legal father, or be made to pay support. The same page gives the rule where we found one.
  • Contact: agree what the child will know, and whether he will meet the child.
  • Other children: ask how many he has, and whether he will help other women later.

The differences between a known donor and a bank are in known donor or sperm bank.

If you are looking for a known donor

This website is one man’s offer. He helps a woman have a child in one of two ways: as a father who stays in touch from far away, or by artificial insemination, after which he steps away. See the two options.

Checked November 2026. A guide only, not legal or medical advice. Laws change: check the rules in force where you live before you start.

Sources

  • United Kingdom: HFEA, “Home insemination with donor sperm”, last reviewed 4 June 2026, and “Using donated eggs, sperm or embryos in treatment” (hfea.gov.uk), checked November 2026.
  • Choosing the donor: Spain, Ley 14/2006, art. 6.5 (BOE); Norway, Bioteknologiloven, § 2-10 (lovdata.no); Kazakhstan, Health Ministry Order No. ҚР ДСМ-272/2020, para. 21 (zakon.uchet.kz), checked November 2026.
  • France: Agence de la biomédecine, press release on 2025 activity, 13 April 2026 (agence-biomedecine.fr); Code pénal, arts 511-12, 511-22 (legifrance.gouv.fr), checked November 2026.
  • New Zealand: Fertility Associates, “Donor options and surrogacy” (fertilityassociates.co.nz); Community Law Manual, chapter 14 (communitylaw.org.nz), checked November 2026.
  • Shipping: European Sperm Bank, Frequently Asked Questions (europeanspermbank.com), checked November 2026; India, ART (Regulation) Act 2021, s.33(1)(c) (Gazette of India, via PRS), checked October 2026; Morocco, Loi n° 47-14, art. 30 (adala.justice.gov.ma); Israel, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, sperm import cost sheet, February 2025 (tasmc.org.il); University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, price list effective 1 November 2025 (uhcw.nhs.uk), checked November 2026.
  • Known donor at a clinic: Denmark, Bekendtgørelse nr. 1452 af 1. december 2025, § 16 (retsinformation.dk); Belgium, Loi du 6 juillet 2007, art. 57 (ejustice.just.fgov.be); Spain, Ley 14/2006, art. 5.5; France, Code de la santé publique, art. L1211-5, checked November 2026.
  • Outside a clinic: Greece, Law 3305/2005, art. 26 (e-nomothesia.gr); Portugal, Lei 32/2006, art. 34 (pgdlisboa.pt), checked November 2026; Thailand, ART Act B.E. 2558 (2015), ss.35, 50, checked October 2026.
  • T. Freeman, V. Jadva, E. Tranfield, S. Golombok, “Online sperm donation: a survey of the demographic characteristics, motivations, preferences and experiences of sperm donors on a connection website”, Human Reproduction 31(9), 2016 (europepmc.org), checked November 2026.
  • Dutch serial donor, as reported: ESHRE position paper, “International limits on the number of offspring per gamete donor”, Human Reproduction 41(8), July 2026 (academic.oup.com); NL Times, 28 April 2023 (nltimes.nl), checked November 2026.
  • V. Jadva, T. Freeman, E. Tranfield, S. Golombok, “‘Friendly allies in raising a child’: a survey of men and women seeking elective co-parenting arrangements via an online connection website”, Human Reproduction 30(8), 2015 (europepmc.org), checked November 2026.
  • S. Foley, V. Jadva, S. Golombok, “Elective co-parenting with someone already known versus someone met online”, Reproductive BioMedicine Online 50(5), 2025 (openaccess.city.ac.uk), checked November 2026.