Zora Health / Employer guide / Brazil
Support employees through fertility treatment, and keep the talent you have invested in.
Fertility treatment rarely fits around a work calendar, and most employees go through it quietly, often while doing some of their best work. Zora Health helps you build practical fertility support, from policies and manager guidance to confidential care navigation and access to 128+ partner clinics in 16 countries, around your workforce and budget. Companies including Hilton, LinkedIn, Sanofi, HSBC, Mastercard, Carousell and Singapore Management University work with us.
Book an employer consultation Explore the cost calculator
Five things Brazilian HR leaders should know
- IBGE estimates Brazil’s total fertility rate at 1.57 in 2023, while IVF cycles reported to Anvisa rose from 41,586 in 2020 to 62,997 in 2025.
- Health plans need not pay for IVF unless the contract covers it (STJ Tema 1067, 2021), though a 2023 STJ panel ruling requires egg freezing cover for cancer patients.
- Public IVF is scarce: a 2024 UNFPA study counted 11 SUS centres out of 192 clinics, and Folhapress reported public waits of 1 to 2 years in 2024.
- CFM Resolution 2.320/2022 sets an age limit of 50 as a rule, caps embryos transferred by age and allows only unpaid surrogacy by a relative.
- Most employees pay privately, so a fixed annual allowance keeps the employer’s budget predictable.
Why fertility is a business problem for employers
Fertility treatment does not fit around a work calendar. A clinic sets the date of a scan the day before. Egg collection happens when the body is ready, usually about 36 hours after a final trigger injection. Then comes a two-week wait, and for many couples, another cycle. Your team feels it: missed meetings, unexplained absences, a strong performer who suddenly goes quiet.
The World Health Organization estimates that about 1 in 6 people worldwide are affected by infertility. In Brazil, cycles to collect eggs for freezing grew from 7,872 in 2020 to 18,631 in 2025 (Anvisa SisEmbrio data, Tribuna do Sertão, July 2026). The Ferring and Carrot surveys cited below did not include Brazil.
- Resignations. 39% of employees in Ferring‘s 2025 survey of more than 3,600 people in Australia, France, Japan, Poland and the UK had left or were considering leaving their job during fertility treatment.
- Lower performance. 36% in the same survey felt pressure from their employer to be at work during treatment, and 17% took sick leave because they lacked flexibility.
- Long public queues. At Hospital das Clínicas in Ribeirão Preto, the wait from referral to a first consultation is about 2 to 3 years (HCRP, December 2025).
- Uneven access. 149 of Brazil’s 192 assisted reproduction clinics, about 77%, are in the South and Southeast, and the North has 5 (UNFPA, March 2024).
What employers gain
Keep the people you spent the most to develop
Replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary (Gallup). A Fertgroup specialist said women over 35 made up about two-thirds of assisted reproduction procedures in Brazil in 2025 (Tribuna do Sertão, July 2026). A written policy, paid time off and a funded allowance address some reasons they leave.
Stand out in a tight labour market
73% of employees with fertility challenges said they would be attracted to a role that offers fertility support (Ferring, 2025, Australia, France, Japan, Poland and the UK), and 65% said they would change jobs for fertility benefits (Carrot, 2023, 5,000 people in Canada, India, Mexico, the UK and the US).
Make fertility support financially predictable
Employers can set annual or lifetime allowances and decide which treatments qualify. Zora structures benefits around local costs, the law and workforce needs, within an agreed budget.
Want to see what this would look like for your Brazilian workforce?
What IVF costs, and what the state pays
Brazil has had a national assisted reproduction policy since 2005, but IVF is not in the SUS procedure table, and in March 2024 only about 10 public centres offered it, most charging for medication (Folhapress).
| Item | Typical cost (R$) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| IVF, one full private cycle | 15,000 to 100,000 | 2023 range (UNFPA), by procedure, attempts and city |
| IVF, one private cycle, common range | 25,000 to 50,000 | Folhapress, 2024; Tribuna de Minas gave an average of about 30,000 |
| IVF, one private cycle, specialist estimate | 15,000 to 20,000 | Excluding medication; CNN Brasil, June 2025 |
| Elective egg freezing, one cycle | 10,000 to 15,000, plus 1,000 to 2,000 a year for storage | Varies with the clinic and medication; CNN Brasil, June 2025 |
| Medication at public centres that charge | About 6,000 to 16,000 per cycle | HC Ribeirão Preto and Hospital São Paulo (Unifesp, including culture media), 2024 |
| Donor eggs or sperm, embryo genetic testing | Paid by the patient | Including at public centres such as HC Ribeirão Preto |
Sources: UNFPA study reported by SBT News, March 2024; Folhapress, March 2024; Tribuna de Minas, July 2024; HCRP infertility referral protocol, December 2025. CNN Brasil, article by assisted reproduction specialist Maria Cecília Erthal, 11 June 2025. Clinics set their own prices.
| Item | Public support (or own savings) | What the employee still carries |
|---|---|---|
| IVF through the SUS | Free or part-free at about 10 to 11 public centres; many set an age limit of about 38 and allow up to 2 cycles | Medication at most centres, travel to a centre and a wait of 1 to 2 years |
| IVF through a private health plan | None unless the contract expressly covers it (STJ Tema 1067) | The full private price |
| Diagnosis and treatment of causes such as endometriosis or fibroids | Covered by health plans | Plan co-payments |
| Egg freezing before chemotherapy | Health plans must cover it until chemotherapy ends (STJ, REsp 1.962.984/SP, 2023) | Later use of the eggs in IVF |
| Elective egg freezing | None; own savings (not a subsidy) | Retrieval, freezing and yearly storage at the clinic’s price |
Sources: Folhapress, March 2024; AASP report of the STJ Tema 1067 ruling, October 2021; Rosenbaum Advogados, updated October 2026.
Age strongly predicts IVF success, and no Brazilian registry publishes success rates by age. In the UK, the preliminary 2023 birth rate per embryo transferred was 35% for patients aged 18 to 34 and 5% for those aged 43 to 44, for fresh transfers with their own eggs (HFEA).
An employee who joins a 2-year public queue at 36 can pass a centre’s age limit of about 38 before her turn, so when employees can use an allowance matters as much as its size.
Give Employees Access to Fertility Specialists
Help employees navigate fertility care with access to doctors and clinics, treatment information, and clear guidance on IVF, egg freezing and other fertility options. Employees can explore their options privately, without needing to go through HR.
Fertility support that fits your workforce and budget
You do not need to overhaul your existing health insurance to support employees through fertility treatment. Start with awareness and manager education, add confidential one-to-one support, or introduce a funded allowance across your offices. There is no minimum company size.
Where included in the employer programme, eligible employees can use talks and care navigation without paying Zora a separate fee. Care navigation allowances are set in each proposal. Treatment and other third-party costs are paid separately, either by employees or through the fertility allowance their employer provides.
Companies starting the conversation
Essentials
Expert-led talks for employees and managers, fertility and menopause policy templates, manager guides and full access to the Zora app. Up to 2 talks a year.
Employees supported one to one
Navigation
Everything in Essentials, plus confidential one-to-one care navigation and access to our partner clinic network.
Large and multi-country teams
Complete
Everything in Navigation, plus quarterly anonymised reporting, a dedicated account manager and scheduled review meetings with HR.
Optional add-ons can be added to any programme, subject to availability: hormone and fertility diagnostics and telehealth with specialists. Pricing is tailored to your headcount, your countries and the services you choose. Most companies start with a single talk.
Request a proposal See how Zora works for employers
Comparing fertility benefit providers? Use our RFP question bank
Our RFP question bank has 40 questions, with why each one matters, what a good answer looks like and a scoring sheet for three providers. Six of the questions for Brazil:
- Are local-plan employees covered, or only staff on international health plans?
- Do you require an infertility diagnosis before support starts?
- Which clinics can employees use in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other cities, and how do you support staff in the North and Northeast, where there are few clinics?
- How does the allowance work alongside our health plan, given that plans do not have to cover IVF under STJ Tema 1067 unless the contract says so?
- How do you support employees who are waiting for public IVF through the SUS or who are near a public centre’s age limit?
- How is employee health data handled under the LGPD as sensitive personal data, and what does the employer see?
Your download link appears here as soon as you submit. Zora Health may contact you about employee benefits; see our privacy policy.
Plan your fertility benefit budget
Fertility benefit budget planner
Model the annual claims budget for a fertility allowance. Change any number.
This is a claims budget, not a Zora quotation. Zora’s programme fees, implementation and optional services are separate.
Illustration only. Utilisation is an editable assumption, not observed Zora data. The calculation assumes each user claims their full annual allowance, and excludes programme fees and setup costs. For a tailored model, request an employer proposal.
Estimate the potential workforce impact of fertility challenges
A rough planning scenario. It applies a global infertility estimate to your headcount, so it is not a prediction for your workforce, a measured loss or a forecast of savings from any programme.
Range: R$563,750 to Rclass=”zc-note o-rng”>Range: ,595,000 a year, depending on replacement cost.
Assumptions: infertility affects about 1 in 6 adults (World Health Organization, 2023), applied to employees aged 25 to 44. Replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary (Gallup, 2019); the headline uses the low end. Absence is valued at salary divided by 250 working days. Exit rate and days lost are your own assumptions.
This is a hypothetical cost scenario, not a prediction of actual employee departures, an estimate of Zora’s financial impact or a guaranteed saving from fertility benefits.
Already have corporate health insurance? Here is where Zora fits
Your medical plan may cover some consultations and tests, but fertility treatment is often limited or excluded, so check your policy wording. Employees still need to understand their options, the public funding they qualify for and which clinic suits them.
Zora works alongside your existing insurance and benefits. We help employees get reliable information, navigate their care options and reach suitable specialists, and we give HR manager guidance, policy templates and, on the Complete programme, anonymised reporting. You strengthen fertility support without replacing your medical plan.
How Zora works
For your employees
Employees join the Zora app with a company code, or single sign-on for larger teams. They can learn about fertility and egg freezing, understand what your benefit covers, book a confidential care navigation call and find partner clinics and specialists.
For HR
- Kick-off, week 1. Agree goals, countries and which employees are eligible.
- Policy and benefit design, weeks 2 to 4. Draft or update your fertility policy using our templates.
- Launch, typically weeks 4 to 6. A launch talk for employees and managers, plus a communications pack for HR to send.
- Live support. Employees book care navigation calls and use the Zora app.
- Reporting, every 3 months, on the Complete programme. Anonymised usage, common themes and our recommendations, reviewed with your account manager.
Privacy
Employee privacy is central to our programmes. On the Complete programme, routine employer reports contain aggregated engagement and utilisation information, with safeguards to prevent identification of individual employees. On every programme, personal health information is not included in standard HR reporting, and employees can get help without telling their manager. Where eligibility checks or claims administration need individual-level data, access is limited to authorised parties for defined purposes, as agreed in writing before launch. Employee data is handled in line with Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act and Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD, Law 13.709/2018), under which health data is sensitive personal data.
Clinics and doctors in Brazil
Zora’s clinic and doctor directory does not list providers in Brazil yet. It lists 421 clinics and 1,185 doctors across 25 countries, mostly in Asia Pacific and the Middle East (browse clinics or browse doctors). Employees in Brazil can still use Zora’s education and the Zora app. Ask us how your team in Brazil would use Zora before you launch. See Zora’s employer guides for every country.
Rules and eligibility in Brazil
Who can use assisted reproduction
Under Federal Council of Medicine rules, single parents and couples, married or not, have equal access, and female couples can use shared gestation, where one partner carries the other’s embryo. The maximum age for women is 50, with justified exceptions. Women up to 37 can transfer up to 2 embryos, women over 37 up to 3, and 2 if embryos are euploid (CFM Resolution 2.320/2022).
Unpaid donation, family surrogacy
Gamete donation cannot be paid and stays anonymous, except when the donor is a relative of one partner up to the fourth degree. Egg donors must be 37 or under and sperm donors 45 or under; egg sharing with split costs is allowed. Surrogacy is limited to an unpaid blood relative up to the fourth degree who already has a child, unless the regional medical council approves an exception. Freezing eggs, sperm or embryos is allowed for medical and non-medical reasons (CFM, CFM news, September 2022).
Health plans and IVF
Law 9.656/1998 makes artificial insemination optional cover for ANS-regulated plans, and in a binding October 2021 judgment the Superior Court of Justice applied the same rule to IVF: plans need not pay for it unless the contract expressly provides for it (AASP, IBDFAM, October 2021). In 2023 its Third Panel required plans to cover egg freezing for cancer patients until chemotherapy ends (Rosenbaum Advogados). A law firm guide updated in October 2026 reports no later change. Employers wanting IVF cover must negotiate it or fund it separately.
Parental leave and discrimination
Maternity pay lasts 120 days and can start up to 28 days before the birth (INSS). Empresa Cidadã companies add 60 days, to 180, if the employee asks by the end of the first month after the birth (Law 11.770/2008). A pregnant employee cannot be dismissed without cause from confirmation of pregnancy until 5 months after the birth (Constitution, ADCT article 10; Conjur, June 2025).
Paternity leave is 5 days in 2026, or 20 at Empresa Cidadã companies. Law 15.371 of 31 March 2026 raises it to 10 days from 1 January 2027, 15 from 2028 and 20 from 2029 (the last step depends on a fiscal target); employers pay the new paternity pay and recover it from social security. From 1 January 2027, when the law takes effect, a father cannot be dismissed without cause from the first day of paternity leave until 1 month after it ends, under article 4 (Law 15.371/2026).
We found no statutory fertility or IVF leave. Law 9.029/1995 bars employers from requiring pregnancy or sterilisation certificates and other discriminatory practices (LexML).
Health data is sensitive personal data
Health and genetic data are sensitive personal data (article 5). It needs specific consent or a narrow legal ground, and controllers may not share health data for economic advantage, with limited exceptions (article 11). Employers should receive only anonymous, aggregated programme data.
Why employers choose Zora
Companies including Hilton, LinkedIn, Sanofi, HSBC, Mastercard, Carousell and Singapore Management University work with Zora Health. We work alongside your existing insurance, helping employees use the cover they already have and find suitable specialists based on their needs.
Trying to conceive with a heavy workload took a toll on my husband and me. It helped us understand our options.
Questions HR teams ask us
Is fertility leave mandatory in Brazil?
We found no statutory fertility or IVF leave in Brazil. Maternity pay lasts 120 days, or 180 days at companies in the Empresa Cidadã programme. Time off for treatment depends on company policy, collective agreements or medical certificates.
Do health plans in Brazil pay for IVF?
Not by default. Under the Superior Court of Justice’s Tema 1067 ruling of October 2021, plans regulated by the ANS do not have to pay for IVF unless the contract expressly provides for it. They do cover diagnosis and treatment of underlying conditions, and a 2023 STJ panel ruling requires them to cover egg freezing for cancer patients before chemotherapy.
Can employees freeze their eggs in Brazil?
Yes. CFM Resolution 2.320/2022 allows freezing of eggs, sperm and embryos for medical and non-medical reasons. Elective egg freezing is paid privately: a specialist writing for CNN Brasil in June 2025 put one cycle at R$10,000 to R$15,000, plus R$1,000 to R$2,000 a year for storage. Demand is rising: cycles to collect eggs for freezing rose from 7,872 in 2020 to 18,631 in 2025, according to Anvisa’s SisEmbrio data.
Does Zora replace our health insurance?
No. Zora works alongside your insurance. We help employees understand their options, find suitable specialists and use the cover they already have.
How much does a fertility benefit cost an employer?
It depends on the allowance, eligibility and expected uptake. Use the budget planner on this page for a first estimate, then ask us for a tailored proposal based on your headcount and countries.
How quickly can we launch?
Typically 4 to 6 weeks from contract to launch, depending on scope and countries. Most companies start with a single talk.
Related guides for Brazilian employers
Build a fertility benefit for your team
Whether you are introducing fertility benefits for the first time or improving an existing programme, tell us your headcount, countries and priorities. We will come back within two working days with suitable services, an indicative budget and a practical rollout plan for your Brazilian team. No obligation.
Not ready to talk yet? Explore how Zora works
Sources
- IBGE, Projeções da População: Brasil e Unidades da Federação, Revisão 2024
- IBGE, Anuário Estatístico do Brasil 2024, table 2.1.3.3, total fertility rate 2010 to 2030
- Tribuna do Sertão, Aumenta procura por técnicas de reprodução assistida no Brasil (Anvisa SisEmbrio data), July 2026
- SBT News, Brasil tem só 11 clínicas públicas de reprodução assistida, diz estudo da ONU (UNFPA), March 2024
- Folhapress via ABC do ABC, SUS ainda não oferta FIV a casais inférteis quase 20 anos após política de reprodução assistida, March 2024
- Tribuna de Minas, Fertilização in vitro pelo SUS, July 2024
- Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto (USP), Ginecologia: infertilidade referral protocol, December 2025
- AASP, Em repetitivo, STJ decide que planos de saúde não são obrigados a custear fertilização in vitro, October 2021
- IBDFAM, STJ decision on IVF and health plans, October 2021
- Rosenbaum Advogados, Inseminação artificial pelo plano de saúde, updated October 2026
- Conselho Federal de Medicina, Resolution 2.320/2022
- Conselho Federal de Medicina, CFM publica atualização das regras para reprodução assistida no Brasil, September 2022
- INSS, Salário-maternidade
- Câmara dos Deputados, Law 11.770 of 9 September 2008 (Empresa Cidadã), updated text
- Conjur, Garantia de emprego da gestante e a proteção à maternidade, June 2025
- Câmara dos Deputados, Law 15.371 of 31 March 2026 (paternity leave and paternity pay)
- LexML, Law 9.029 of 13 April 1995
- LGPD (English translation), article 5
- LGPD (English translation), article 11
- HFEA, Fertility treatment 2023: trends and figures
- CNN Brasil, Congelamento de óvulos: tudo que você precisa saber antes de fazer, Maria Cecília Erthal, 11 June 2025
- Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Fertility Matters at Work and This Can Happen, workplace fertility survey, November 2025
- Carrot Fertility, Global Fertility at Work report, 2023
- Gallup, This fixable problem costs US businesses $1 trillion, 2019
- World Health Organization, 1 in 6 people globally affected by infertility, April 2023
Information on this page is correct as of 5 November 2026. Laws, public funding, insurance rules and treatment costs change often, so check current rules with the relevant authority, insurer or a qualified adviser before making decisions. This page is general information, not legal, financial, tax or medical advice.