The Netherlands' Surrogacy Bill Finally Has a Debate Date: 12 October 2026

What happened

Bill 36390 has been sitting in the Dutch parliament since July 2023. It cleared a committee debate in March 2025, after which the committee asked for a formal scientific review before going any further. That review is done, and the bill now has a real date: a plenary debate on 12 October 2026.

This isn't a small procedural update. It's the first realistic chance in years that the Netherlands gets dedicated surrogacy legislation — something intended parents, surrogates and fertility lawyers have been asking for since well before this bill was drafted.

What the bill would actually change

Today, under Dutch civil law, the woman who gives birth is always the child's legal mother — even in a surrogacy arrangement, and even when the intended mother's own egg was used. Intended parents currently need a separate court procedure after the birth to become legal parents, regardless of genetics.

The bill would let a judge assign legal parenthood to the intended parents before the surrogate is even pregnant, replacing that after-the-fact scramble with a decision made in advance, with everyone's consent on record.

It also adds something the Netherlands doesn't have today: a formal procedure for recognizing parenthood established through surrogacy arranged abroad. That directly targets the specific practical trap Dutch intended parents run into now — a Dutch consulate can refuse to issue a child born via international surrogacy a passport or travel document until parentage is sorted out, which has delayed some families' return home by many months.

Not everyone thinks it goes far enough

Legal experts writing in the Nederlands Juristenblad, the country's main legal-affairs journal, have flagged three specific gaps in the current draft.

First, oversight: the bill removes the Child Protection Council (Raad voor de Kinderbescherming) from its current monitoring role, and sets no compensation limits for surrogacy arranged abroad — precisely where enforcement is hardest.

Second, timing: the bill's judicial review happens before the pregnancy starts, but the disputes that actually happen — disagreement between a surrogate and intended parents over whether to end a pregnancy after an abnormal ultrasound, for instance — happen during or after it. A one-time approval before conception doesn't cover that.

Third, and directly undercutting the bill's own stated goal: some surrogates travel abroad specifically to use anonymous donors, which would leave the resulting child without the ancestry information the bill is supposed to guarantee them. The Netherlands banned anonymous donation domestically in 2004 precisely to prevent this kind of gap — critics argue the bill needs to close the same loophole for surrogacy.

What this means if you're already planning a surrogacy journey

Nothing changes yet. 12 October is a debate, not a vote, and the bill can still be amended before — or after — it passes. If you're currently working through an international surrogacy program, the guidance in our Netherlands surrogacy guide still applies exactly as written: plan the post-birth Dutch recognition procedure and passport paperwork before the birth, not after.

What's worth watching is what actually happens on and after 12 October — whether the bill passes broadly as drafted, gets amended along the lines critics are asking for, or stalls again. We'll follow up once there's a real outcome to report.