New donor registrations
Number of donors by the year they first registered as a donor at an HFEA licensed clinic, 1992-2008
- Each donor may specify the number of families he or she is willing to help create. A donor may donate to one family, or specify any number up to a maximum of 10 families.
- Donors may go on to donate in subsequent years or their sperm/eggs may be used at other clinics.
- Donor eggs, sperm or embryos may be stored and used some time after the donor registered or donated. For example, where donor sperm is reserved for use in treatment to create donor siblings some years after the first child is born.
- Donors must be registered with the HFEA within 5 days of their eggs or sperm becoming available for use, and after counselling and screening.
- Individuals are only registered as donors if they donate their eggs, sperm or embryos for treatment. Anyone only donating for research is not registered as a donor. In surrogacy arrangements, the commissioning couple (or the commissioning father) would have to register as donors if they provide the eggs, sperm or embryos.
- The number of egg donors shown here includes both those who donate all their eggs in a treatment cycle (non-patient egg donors) and those who share their eggs with up to two recipients (egg share donors).
| All new donors registered | ||
| Year | Sperm donors | Egg donors |
| 1992 | 346 | 449 |
| 1993 | 422 | 527 |
| 1994 | 417 | 731 |
| 1995 | 412 | 749 |
| 1996 | 417 | 805 |
| 1997 | 342 | 912 |
| 1998 | 254 | 946 |
| 1999 | 298 | 1,118 |
| 2000 | 312 | 1,221 |
| 2001 | 315 | 1,289 |
| 2002 | 275 | 1,148 |
| 2003 | 248 | 1,029 |
| 2004 | 224 | 1,032 |
| 2005 | 251 | 921 |
| 2006 | 287 | 781 |
| 2007 | 366 | 969 |
| 2008 | 396 | 1,150 |
Note - the numbers of donors listed in this table will be less than the number of donors listed in the 'UK and overseas donors' table. This is because the 'UK and overseas' table lists the number of donors registering in each year and thus if a donor is registered in more than one year, they will be counted once in each of those years. In the above table a donor will only be counted in the first year they register.
Further information
Page last updated: 23 July 2010