IVF now costs $29,000 a cycle — and a growing number of Americans are flying to Greece instead
A cycle of in vitro fertilization costs a third of the median household income, most plans do not cover it, and patients typically need two or three tries. Athens clinics charge a fifth of that. Here is why the gap exists and what to check before you book a flight.
Emilie and Justin Solomon were quoted $40,000 for one round of IVF in Florida. Their insurance covered none of it. They ended up in Athens, where the same treatment — medication, fertilization, storage and transfer — ran about $12,000, not counting airfare. KFF Health News told their story last week, and it is not unusual: the number of Americans choosing European fertility clinics rose more than 37% last year, according to the European Fertility Society.
That is a strange thing for a wealthy country's health system to produce. A medical procedure invented decades ago, performed more than 100,000 times a year in the United States, has become expensive enough that flying across an ocean is the rational choice. The numbers explain how.
- $29,000+ — cost of one IVF cycle for insured Americans, about 35% of median household income (Axene Health Partners, July 2026)
- $54,000+ — total cost per IVF-conceived birth once testing, storage and delivery are included
- 2 to 3 — cycles the average patient needs
- 90% — rise in IVF medication costs since 2014 (GoodRx)
- $3,000 to $6,000 — a cycle in Greece, before medication
- 24% — share of US infertility treatment needs that are actually met
(Sources: KFF Health News, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, GoodRx)
Why the sticker is so high
Nobody involved gives a single reason, because there is not one. Embryologists are in short supply, which pushes up labor costs. Demand surged after pandemic backlogs. Medication prices nearly doubled in a decade. And a large share of US clinics are now owned by private equity, which tends to price for what the market will bear — and in fertility, the market will bear a great deal. As one clinic executive told KFF, "IVF is almost a treatment that only the top 1% can afford reasonably."
The Solomons' clinic offered them a spring discount on an embryo transfer. Emilie called it "off-putting." Seasonal promotions are what you do when the product is discretionary. For the 7 million Americans dealing with infertility, it is not.
Where insurance stands
Most employer plans do not cover IVF, and the ACA's essential health benefits do not require it. About twenty states have some fertility mandate, but they vary enormously: some require coverage only for large employers, some only for diagnosis, some exclude IVF specifically, and self-funded employer plans — which cover most people at large companies — are exempt from state mandates entirely.
The federal picture has moved only slightly. The administration proposed a rule in May to make it easier for employers to offer standalone fertility benefits; it is not final. The concrete result so far is discounted IVF medication through TrumpRx, which the White House projects at up to $2,200 per cycle. Against a $29,000 cycle, that is a rounding error with good intentions.
Before assuming you have no coverage, read your plan documents, not the summary. Look for "infertility," "ART," and "assisted reproductive technology" in the exclusions. Some plans cover diagnosis and medication while excluding the procedure, and that partial coverage is worth thousands. Our guide to in-network and out-of-network care explains how to read that section.
What going abroad actually involves
Greece and Spain are the main destinations because they combine low prices, quick start times and clinics built for foreign patients — airport pickup and island tours included. A cycle using your own eggs typically runs $3,000 to $4,000 plus medication at the lower end, just under $6,000 at a well-known Athens clinic.
The savings are not free of trade-offs. Greek law limits embryo storage time, keeps donors anonymous, restricts sex selection and the number of embryos transferred, and limits surrogacy for nonresidents. Moving frozen embryos between countries requires paperwork and careful shipping. US doctors point out that vetting a clinic in a language you do not speak, under rules you do not know, is genuinely harder than it looks from a brochure — and that if something goes wrong, your recourse is in a foreign court.
The domestic middle ground
Not every US option is $40,000. A handful of chains have built a volume model: CNY Fertility offers cycles for about $8,000 before storage at 18 locations, and says more than half its patients travel from out of state. That is still a lot of money. It is also a lot less than the average, and it comes with US regulation, US records and no customs forms for your embryos.
If you are comparing options, ask every clinic — foreign or domestic — for an all-in quote per cycle including medication, monitoring, anesthesia, genetic testing, freezing and the first year of storage. The headline price is never the whole price, and that is the item that turns a $12,000 cycle into $18,000.
The Solomons had one of the best summers of their lives in Greece. The reason they were there is the part worth being angry about.