Fertility clinics in Singapore: success rates, costs and what is subsidised

Singapore regulates assisted reproduction more tightly than most countries, publishes what the public centres charge, and co-funds treatment for citizens in a way that decides where most couples go. This entry lists the centres, what a cycle costs on each route, and the rules — age limits, cycle caps, co-funding — that shape the decision.

What decides the outcome

Age. Success per cycle falls steeply after the mid-thirties, and the public co-funding rules follow the same curve. Time spent choosing a clinic is time the biology does not give back.

Public co-funding. Citizens under the age cap get a large share of the cost of a fixed number of cycles at public centres paid by the government. That single rule makes the public route the default for most Singaporean couples.

What the clinic reports. Clinics publish success rates in different ways — per cycle, per transfer, per embryo, clinical pregnancy or live birth, by age band or overall. Compare live birth per cycle started, by age band, or do not compare at all.

The public centres

Three public hospitals run assisted reproduction centres, and they are the only places where the government co-funding applies.

KK IVF Centre, KKH. The largest programme in the country, with the longest track record and the widest range of services, including fertility preservation for cancer patients. Waiting time for a first appointment on the subsidised route is the longest of the three.

NUH Women’s Centre — Clinical Assisted Reproduction Centre. The NUHS programme, with a documented research emphasis and shorter waits for western residents.

SGH Centre for Assisted Reproduction. The SingHealth adult hospital’s programme, smaller than KKH’s, serving the central region.

The private centres

Private fertility clinics offer shorter waits, a named consultant throughout and, at some, techniques not offered publicly. Co-funding does not apply.

Thomson Fertility Centre. The largest private programme, at Thomson Medical, with a long history and published pricing.

Virtus Fertility Centre. Part of an Australian group, at Scotts Road, with a documented emphasis on genetic testing of embryos.

Sincere IVF Centre. At Novena, one of the higher-volume private programmes.

Alpha Fertility Centre, Mount Elizabeth Novena. A private programme with genetic screening and egg-freezing services.

Raffles Fertility Centre. Raffles Hospital’s in-house programme with published fees and same-system referral.

What a cycle costs

This entry used to print a table of cycle costs and a co-funding percentage. Both have been removed, and it is worth explaining why rather than quietly replacing them.

The cost bands were not traceable to any published source. The co-funding figures were checkable in principle — the scheme is public — but the secondary sources that quote it disagree with each other, offering different percentages, different per-cycle caps and different age limits, some of which appear to describe announced changes rather than current rules. The primary pages could not be read in this round.

Writing a number down under those conditions is how a cost table in another entry here ended up understating a private operation by eighteen thousand dollars. So nothing is quoted.

What is stable enough to rely on is the structure, and it is the part that actually shapes a decision:

• Government co-funding exists for assisted reproduction, applies to citizen couples, and covers a limited number of fresh and frozen cycles rather than unlimited treatment.
• The proportion falls where one partner is a permanent resident or a foreigner.
• Eligibility has carried an age condition, and the rules here have been revised more than once in recent years — which is precisely why a figure printed on a page like this ages badly.
• MediSave can be used for assisted conception up to a lifetime limit per account, on both the public and the private route.

Ask the centre for four numbers in writing before you start: the cycle cost at that centre for your protocol, the co-funding percentage and per-cycle cap you personally qualify for, how many co-funded cycles you have left, and the MediSave limit remaining on the accounts you plan to use. Those four determine the bill. No comparison table, including this one, can substitute for them, because three of the four depend on you rather than on the clinic.

Egg freezing

Before any of the above, the first consultation at a public centre is often a wait of one to three months on the subsidised route. Couples who have already completed investigations elsewhere can bring the results; the centre will repeat only what is out of date. Male factor accounts for close to half of cases, so both partners are tested from the start.

Elective egg freezing for non-medical reasons has been permitted for women in a defined age range since 2023, at licensed centres, with the eggs usable only within marriage under current rules. A retrieval cycle costs in the same band as an IVF cycle without transfer, plus annual storage fees. No co-funding applies.

What a referral actually looks like

A polyclinic or gynaecologist refers couples to a public centre; the subsidised rate requires the polyclinic or CHAS route. Investigations — hormone tests, semen analysis, tubal assessment — happen before the first fertility consultation. Private clinics take direct bookings.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between IUI and IVF in cost?

Intrauterine insemination is a fraction of the cost — in the low hundreds to low thousands per cycle — and is the first step for many couples with unexplained or mild male factor infertility. Co-funding at public centres covers a set number of IUI cycles as well.

Which fertility clinic has the best success rate in Singapore?

Clinics report on different bases, so published rates are not comparable. Ask each for live birth per cycle started in your age band.

Do private fertility clinics have better success rates than public ones?

This entry does not answer that, and the reason is worth more than a guess would be.

No published like-for-like comparison of Singapore’s public and private fertility programmes was found. That is not the same as knowing they perform alike — it means the comparison does not exist in a form anyone can check.

The obstacle is not secrecy, it is arithmetic. A clinic can report success per cycle started, per egg retrieval, per embryo transfer, as clinical pregnancy or as live birth, overall or split by age band. Those choices can move a headline figure by a wide margin without anyone misstating anything. And outcomes depend heavily on the age and diagnosis of the patients a programme accepts, so a clinic that takes harder cases will report worse numbers while doing better work.

What you can do is force a like-for-like answer yourself. Ask every centre you are considering the same question in the same terms: live births per cycle started, for patients in my age band, for the most recent full year. Ask how many cycles that figure is based on, because a rate drawn from a few dozen cycles carries the same small-number problem set out in the cardiology entry here — one or two outcomes move it visibly.

If a centre will not answer in those terms, that is information too.

Can foreigners get IVF in Singapore?

Yes, at private clinics and at public centres on the private rate, without co-funding. Singapore is a common destination for treatment within the region.

How many cycles are co-funded?

A set number of fresh and frozen cycles for eligible citizens below the age cap, with a further allowance under some conditions. The count and the cap are set by the Ministry of Health and have been revised more than once.

Is IVF covered by insurance?

Not by MediShield Life or Integrated Shield Plans. Some international and employer plans include a fertility benefit; most do not.

Check also

• Gynecology hospitals in Singapore — where the investigation and referral usually start
• MediSave and MediShield Life explained — how the MediSave withdrawal for assisted conception works
• Health screening packages in Singapore — pre-conception screening and what it includes

Where this index comes from

This entry now prints no cycle costs, no co-funding percentage and no age cap. That is a deliberate result of what happened when they were checked on 24 September 2026.

The cost bands were untraceable. The co-funding figures were worse than untraceable: the secondary sources quoting them disagree on the percentage, the per-cycle cap and the age limit, and some appear to describe announced changes rather than rules in force. The ministry’s own pages on the scheme could not be reached in this round, so nothing was verified and nothing is stated.

Disagreeing sources are a stronger reason to publish nothing than silent ones are. A single unsourced figure might be right; several sources contradicting each other guarantees that at least some of what is circulating is wrong, and there is no way to tell from here which part.

The absence of a public-versus-private outcome comparison is likewise recorded as an absence. None was found in a form that could be checked.

For the current co-funding terms, the treating centre’s financial counselling is the source that can also tell you which of them apply to you, which a page like this cannot.