Texas is one of the states with an established legal framework for gestational surrogacy, making it an important location for women considering becoming surrogates.
But becoming a surrogate involves much more than simply being willing to carry a pregnancy for another family.
You will need to meet medical and program qualifications, complete screening, choose intended parents, undergo fertility-clinic testing, work with your own independent attorney, take medications for embryo transfer, and commit to a pregnancy in which another family is emotionally invested from the very beginning.
At Simple Surrogacy, we have worked with surrogates and intended parents since 2002. Many members of our team have firsthand experience as surrogates themselves, so we understand that women considering surrogacy usually want much more than a list of requirements.
You want to know:
Am I qualified?
How much will I be paid?
Will I get to choose the intended parents?
What will the medications and embryo transfer be like?
Who protects my interests legally?
What happens during pregnancy and delivery?
And perhaps most importantly:
How do I know whether becoming a surrogate is right for me?
Here is what you should know about becoming a gestational surrogate in Texas.
A gestational surrogate carries a pregnancy for another person or family using an embryo created through IVF.
She does not provide the egg used to create the embryo and therefore has no genetic relationship to the baby.
The embryo may be created using the intended parents’ eggs and sperm, donor eggs or sperm, or a combination depending on the family’s circumstances.
This is different from traditional surrogacy, in which the woman carrying the pregnancy also provides the egg.
If you are new to surrogacy, read our guide explaining gestational surrogacy versus traditional surrogacy.
Texas has a specific statutory framework addressing gestational agreements.
The Texas Family Code authorizes certain gestational agreements in which a prospective gestational mother agrees to carry a pregnancy created through assisted reproduction and the intended parents plan to become the child’s legal parents.
Texas law also specifically recognizes something extremely important for surrogates: a gestational agreement cannot take away the surrogate’s right to make decisions necessary to safeguard her own health or the health of the embryo.
You can review the relevant provisions in Texas Family Code Chapter 160, Subchapter I.
However, the legal details of a Texas journey can vary depending on factors such as marital status, residency, parentage circumstances, and the specific structure of the arrangement.
That is why every surrogate should have her own independent reproductive-law attorney.
You should never rely solely on the intended parents’ attorney or an agency to explain your legal rights.
Our Surrogacy 101 Legal Process guide explains how legal contracts generally work in a Simple Surrogacy journey.
Texas law and fertility clinics establish some requirements, while surrogacy agencies establish additional program qualifications.
Simple Surrogacy’s current published qualifications include several basic requirements.
Generally, applicants must:
Individual fertility clinics may have additional requirements.
ASRM currently recommends that gestational carriers be of legal age and preferably between ages 21 and 45, have had at least one term uncomplicated pregnancy, have adequate family support, and undergo appropriate medical, infectious-disease, psychological, and legal evaluation.
You can review Simple Surrogacy’s complete current qualifications on our Surrogate Program page.
This is one of the most important surrogate qualifications.
Surrogacy should not be your first experience with pregnancy.
Having previously carried and delivered a child gives both you and the medical professionals evaluating you valuable information about how your body responds to pregnancy.
It also means you understand the practical reality of pregnancy better than someone who has never experienced it.
You know what morning sickness can feel like.
You understand prenatal appointments.
You have experienced the physical changes of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery.
Your previous obstetric records also give fertility specialists information they can review when determining whether another pregnancy appears medically appropriate.
ASRM likewise recommends that gestational carriers ideally have had at least one previous term, uncomplicated pregnancy.
The first step is completing a surrogate application.
You can apply to become a Simple Surrogacy surrogate here.
Our team reviews the information you provide and speaks with you about your pregnancy history, family, health, motivation, and what you hope your surrogacy journey will look like.
If you appear to meet the initial qualifications, the screening process begins.
That generally includes:
The purpose of screening is not to make the application intentionally difficult.
Pregnancy always carries medical risk. IVF adds additional medical procedures and medications. Surrogacy also involves complex emotional, financial, and legal relationships.
Screening helps determine whether moving forward appears appropriate for everyone involved—especially you.
Yes.
At Simple Surrogacy, the surrogate chooses first.
We do not believe women should simply be assigned to intended parents because an agency determines that the profiles technically match.
Once you are ready for matching, we identify intended-parent profiles that appear compatible with the preferences you gave us.
You decide which profiles interest you.
Only after you express interest do we send your profile to those intended parents.
If both sides are interested, we arrange a conversation so everyone can get to know one another.
You can ask questions.
They can ask questions.
And either side can decide the match does not feel right.
There should never be pressure to accept intended parents simply because they are available.
Our complete guide to how surrogates and intended parents are matched explains this process in greater detail.
Matching is about much more than liking someone’s profile.
Think about the relationship you want during the pregnancy.
How often would you like to communicate?
How involved would you like the intended parents to be?
Are you comfortable with them attending appointments?
What kind of contact would you like after delivery?
You should also make sure your views align on major pregnancy issues.
Those can include:
Some of these conversations can feel uncomfortable.
Have them anyway.
It is much easier to discover an important disagreement before matching than during a pregnancy.
Agency screening is only the beginning.
After you match with intended parents, their fertility clinic will perform its own evaluation before medically approving you for embryo transfer.
The fertility clinic may review:
ASRM recommends comprehensive medical evaluation, infectious-disease testing, psychosocial evaluation, preconception testing, and uterine-cavity evaluation for gestational carriers.
Our Surrogacy 101 Medical Screening guide walks through this stage in greater detail.
Once you receive medical clearance, the legal process begins.
The intended parents have their attorney.
You have your own attorney.
Your attorney represents you—not the intended parents and not Simple Surrogacy.
The intended parents generally pay the cost of your legal representation, but the attorney’s professional responsibility is to you.
Your gestational-carrier agreement may address matters including:
Do not be afraid to ask your attorney questions.
You should understand what you are agreeing to before you sign anything.
Texas law also expressly states that a gestational agreement may not limit the gestational mother’s right to make decisions necessary to safeguard her health or the health of an embryo.
Gestational surrogates become pregnant through embryo transfer rather than intercourse or insemination.
Once contracts are completed and the fertility clinic issues legal clearance, the clinic prepares you for embryo transfer.
You will usually take medications that help prepare your uterine lining for implantation.
The exact protocol depends on the fertility clinic and your medical circumstances.
Some medications may be oral medications, patches, suppositories, or injections.
Your clinic monitors your hormone levels and uterine lining and determines when you are ready for transfer.
During the transfer, an embryo created previously through IVF is placed into your uterus.
You then return for follow-up testing to determine whether implantation occurred and a pregnancy was established.
You can review the broader sequence on our Surrogate Pregnancy Process page.
Surrogate compensation can vary based on several factors, including:
Compensation is also more than a single base-pay number.
A surrogate package can include separate payments or reimbursements for matters such as:
Because compensation changes over time, we do not recommend relying on an old blog article for the current amount.
Simple Surrogacy publishes our current compensation and benefits directly on our Surrogate Compensation page.
That allows you to see the current program rather than compensation information that may have been accurate several years ago.
This question deserves a more careful answer than many surrogacy websites provide.
Texas does not impose an individual state income tax.
However, that does not automatically mean surrogate compensation has no tax consequences.
Federal tax treatment can depend on how payments are characterized and the circumstances of the arrangement.
A surrogacy agency or coordinator should not be giving you individualized tax advice.
If you have questions about whether your compensation is taxable, speak with a qualified CPA or tax professional who understands your specific circumstances.
The surrogate should not be expected to finance someone else’s fertility journey.
The surrogacy agreement establishes which expenses are reimbursed or paid from funds provided by the intended parents.
At Simple Surrogacy, payments and reimbursements are managed through independent escrow rather than agency-held surrogate funds.
This creates separation between the agency managing the journey and the financial account holding money intended for surrogate compensation and expenses.
Depending on the agreement, covered expenses can include travel, required medical appointments, childcare, lost wages, maternity clothing, and other qualifying costs.
The details belong in the written agreement so that everyone understands expectations before the pregnancy begins.
Once pregnancy is confirmed, you will initially remain under the care of the fertility clinic.
After the clinic determines the early pregnancy is progressing appropriately, you will eventually transition to your regular OB/GYN or another approved obstetric provider.
From there, much of the medical experience begins to look more like your previous pregnancies.
But emotionally and logistically, surrogacy is different.
The intended parents are waiting for appointment updates.
They may attend ultrasounds.
They are experiencing pregnancy milestones through you.
Your coordinator helps manage communication, logistics, benefits, reimbursements, appointments, and questions that arise along the way.
One of the advantages of working with Simple Surrogacy is that many of our coordinators have been surrogates themselves.
They understand the journey from the side you are actually experiencing.
That depends on your preferences, your agreement, medical circumstances, and hospital policies.
A vaginal delivery may allow more support people than a C-section.
Hospitals also have their own rules.
Delivery expectations should be discussed well before labor begins so everyone understands the plan.
The intended parents understandably want to be present for the birth of their child.
But you are also the patient.
Your physical wellbeing, medical needs, privacy, and comfort remain important.
Your coordinator and legal team can help everyone plan for delivery in advance rather than waiting until you are in labor to answer those questions.
After the birth, the intended parents assume care of their baby according to the legal and hospital plan established for the journey.
You begin your own postpartum recovery.
That recovery matters.
Even though you are not bringing a newborn home, your body has still experienced pregnancy and childbirth.
You may experience fatigue, bleeding, hormonal changes, discomfort, breast changes, and the same physical recovery issues associated with other pregnancies.
Some surrogates choose to pump breast milk for the baby for a period of time. Others do not.
Neither choice should be assumed.
The type of relationship you maintain with the intended parents after delivery also varies.
Some surrogates and intended parents remain extremely close.
Others keep in touch periodically.
Relationships naturally evolve.
Those expectations are another reason thoughtful matching matters from the beginning.
This is one of the questions potential surrogates hear frequently.
A gestational surrogate usually enters the journey with a very different mindset from someone experiencing an unplanned separation from a child.
You know from the beginning that you are carrying the intended parents’ baby.
You have met them.
You have watched them prepare.
They may have attended appointments and ultrasounds.
You have spent the pregnancy helping them become parents.
That does not mean the postpartum period is emotionally meaningless.
Hormonal shifts are real.
Pregnancy and delivery are significant experiences.
A surrogate can feel proud, emotional, relieved, tired, happy, or several of those things at once.
Psychological screening and ongoing support help prepare surrogates for this part of the journey as well.
Texas has several practical advantages.
The most important is that the state has had a statutory framework addressing gestational agreements since 2003.
Texas also has major fertility clinics, reproductive-law attorneys, large medical systems, and airports that make travel relatively accessible for intended parents coming from other parts of the country or internationally.
And because Simple Surrogacy was founded in Texas, we have more than two decades of experience coordinating journeys involving Texas surrogates, attorneys, clinics, hospitals, and intended parents.
But the biggest advantage should never be reduced to geography.
A good surrogacy journey depends on screening, thoughtful matching, independent legal representation, financial protections, good communication, and support throughout pregnancy.
Those protections matter whether you live in Dallas, Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio—or a small Texas town.
Not every agency operates the same way.
Before signing with one, ask:
Who owns the agency?
Have the coordinators actually been surrogates themselves?
When does screening happen?
Do I choose the intended parents?
Can I decline a match without pressure?
Will I have my own independent attorney?
Who holds the escrow funds?
What happens if my payments are late?
Who helps me with insurance issues?
Who is available when something goes wrong outside normal business hours?
What happens if I fail medical screening after matching?
What support is available during pregnancy and postpartum?
Can I speak with women who have already completed journeys with the agency?
Compensation matters.
But compensation should not be the only thing you evaluate when choosing the people who will guide you through a year or more of screening, matching, fertility treatment, pregnancy, and recovery.
No. Simple Surrogacy works with qualified surrogates throughout Texas and in other states where appropriate.
Simple Surrogacy’s current program accepts qualified gestational-surrogate applicants between ages 21 and 42. Individual fertility clinics may establish additional requirements.
No. Simple Surrogacy requires surrogates to have previously carried and delivered a child. ASRM also recommends that gestational carriers have experienced at least one term, uncomplicated pregnancy.
Not in gestational surrogacy. The embryo transferred to you is created using eggs and sperm from the intended parents and/or donors. You do not contribute genetic material to the baby.
Yes. At Simple Surrogacy, the surrogate reviews compatible intended-parent profiles first and decides whom she is interested in meeting.
The intended parents generally pay the cost of your independent legal representation. Your attorney represents you.
Surrogacy-related expenses are the responsibility of the intended parents according to the agreement and applicable arrangements. You should not be expected to personally fund the intended parents’ fertility treatment or approved surrogacy-related expenses.
Possibly. The intended parents’ fertility clinic may not be located near you. Travel required for IVF screening or transfer is generally covered according to the program and legal agreement.
Many surrogates continue working during pregnancy. Your job, medical circumstances, travel requirements, and any doctor-ordered restrictions may affect your individual situation.
Texas does not have an individual state income tax, but that does not answer whether compensation has federal tax consequences. Consult a qualified tax professional about your own compensation.
There is no single timeline. Screening, matching, fertility-clinic approval, contracts, embryo transfer, whether the first transfer is successful, pregnancy, and postpartum recovery all affect the length of a journey.
Meeting the qualifications tells us whether you may be eligible.
It does not tell you whether you actually want to do this.
Ask yourself:
Do I genuinely enjoy pregnancy?
Is my family supportive?
Can I manage additional appointments and travel?
Am I comfortable taking fertility medications?
How would I feel having intended parents involved in the pregnancy?
Can I communicate openly when something bothers me?
Am I comfortable carrying a baby knowing I will not be bringing that baby home?
Do I understand that pregnancy always involves some medical risk?
Can I advocate for myself?
Does helping another family become parents genuinely matter to me?
Compensation can make a meaningful difference for your family.
It is appropriate to care about it.
But surrogacy also requires time, physical effort, patience, communication, and a willingness to share a pregnancy experience with another family.
The right program should respect both sides of that decision.
Applying does not mean you have already committed to a pregnancy.
It begins a conversation.
You can learn whether you meet the requirements, ask about compensation, understand the screening process, talk about the kind of intended parents you would like to meet, and decide whether the journey feels right for you.
Simple Surrogacy has been working with surrogates and intended parents since 2002, and our program was shaped by women with firsthand surrogate experience.
If you are considering becoming a surrogate in Texas, review our current surrogate qualifications and benefits, see our current surrogate compensation package, or apply to become a surrogate.
You can ask questions before you decide.
In fact, you should.
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