The Act recognises one single-parent route and closes the rest. Here is exactly who it covers and what that group has to do.
Written / Reviewed by Oji Surrogacy Team
If you are single and considering surrogacy in India, the most useful thing anybody can do for you is answer the eligibility question first, before the process, the cost or the timeline. It is important for you to know that the law here is narrow, and a good deal of what is published online about it is either outdated or wishful.
What Does the Act Recognise?
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 provides for two categories of intending parent. The first is an intending couple, meaning a legally married Indian man and woman. The second is an intending woman, which the Act defines specifically as an Indian woman who is a widow or divorcee between the ages of 35 and 45.
That second definition is the whole of the single-parent route. There is no third category.
Who Does Not Qualify?
This is the part worth being direct about, because reading it now saves far more than it costs.
A never-married single woman does not qualify, regardless of age, means or medical circumstances. A single man does not qualify at all, whether unmarried, widowed or divorced. Couples in a live-in relationship do not qualify, because the Act requires legal marriage. Same-sex couples do not qualify. Foreign nationals and OCI holders face separate restrictions entirely.
If you are in one of those groups, no clinic in India can lawfully arrange surrogacy for you, and any centre suggesting otherwise is proposing something that will not survive the certification stage.
If You Are a Widow or Divorcee, What Applies?
The age window is firm. You must be between 35 and 45, and that is assessed at the point of certification rather than when you first enquire, which matters if you are near either edge of it.
Two certificates stand in the way. The essentiality one depends on a District Medical Board accepting a real medical reason for surrogacy on your facts. The eligibility one is issued by your state's appropriate authority. Alongside both, you carry the surrogate's insurance, 36 months of it, covering complications after delivery.
Gametes work differently for you than for a couple. The rule is your own egg with donor sperm. February 2024 loosened things to the extent of allowing a single donor gamete, subject to a District Medical Board certifying a medical condition that requires it, but the expectation that one gamete is yours survives that change.
Who Can Act as Your Surrogate?
Nothing changes here because you are single. She must have been married at some point, must already be a mother, and must be 25 to 35 on the day of implantation. Once in her lifetime, and no more.
Did the 2025 Supreme Court Ruling Change Anything?
Not for you, and this is worth clearing up because the coverage has been loose.
The October 2025 ruling concerned married couples only, and a specific set of them: those already partway through surrogacy when the Act arrived, with embryos created and frozen. For that group the Court lifted the age certification requirement, on the reasoning that the law should not reach backwards into a choice already made. It was a point about timing.
Nothing in it touched who the Act recognises as a parent. The Court was explicit that it was ruling on whether the provision applied, not on whether it was valid. So the single-parent position stands exactly where it did: widows and divorcees between 35 and 45, nobody else.
What Does the Process Look Like If You Qualify?
Broadly, it runs in this order, and the sequence matters more than families expect.
First the eligibility assessment and medical workup, which establishes whether a District Medical Board is likely to certify an indication in your case. Then the certificates, which is where most of the calendar goes. Then the surrogate's identification, her consent and her insurance. Only after all of that comes the medical cycle itself, and then the court order dealing with parentage.
Families routinely plan around the treatment dates and are then surprised by the wait. Plan around the certification instead and the rest tends to fall into place behind it.
What Should You Do Next?
Establish eligibility before anything else, because on these facts the answer is usually clear within one conversation and it governs everything that follows. Our eligibility criteria page lists the tests, and a consultation applies them to your own circumstances.
We do not operate treatment centres and we take no commission from any, which is precisely why we are in a position to tell you when the answer is no. If the law does not permit it, you deserve to hear that at the start rather than after a deposit.
