Zora Health / Employer guide / Brunei
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.
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Five things Bruneian HR leaders should know
- Jerudong Park Medical Centre (JPMC) describes itself as Brunei’s only IVF provider and publishes no prices. The Ministry of Health’s RIPAS Hospital has offered IUI.
- Foreign residents pay Ministry of Health charges, and since 1 July 2025 permanent residents with a foreign citizenship and foreign spouses of citizens also pay their own treatment costs. No IVF fee is listed.
- We found no dedicated law on assisted reproduction. JPMC describes its services as Syariah-compliant and does not list egg freezing.
- Private-sector citizen and permanent resident employees get 15 weeks’ maternity leave, 13 of them paid; foreign employees get 9 weeks, 8 paid. There is no statutory paternity or fertility leave.
- Brunei has no personal income tax, so there is no tax relief on treatment, and a fixed allowance keeps the employer’s cost 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.
We found no survey of employees in fertility treatment in Brunei. Multi-country evidence suggests many hide it: in Carrot Fertility’s 2023 survey of 5,000 people in Canada, India, Mexico, the UK and the US, 79% said they were uneasy discussing fertility at work.
- Resignations. 39% of employees in fertility treatment had left or were considering leaving their job, in Ferring’s 2025 survey of more than 3,600 employees and employers in Australia, France, Japan, Poland and the UK.
- Lower performance. 55% said fertility challenges had hurt their work performance (Carrot, 2023).
- Unequal access. Foreign employees get 9 weeks’ maternity leave against 15 for citizens and permanent residents (BIPO, 2022), and pay Ministry of Health charges, which since July 2025 also apply to permanent residents with a foreign citizenship and foreign spouses of citizens (The Star, July 2025; Ministry of Health, July 2025).
What employers gain
Keep the people you spent the most to develop
Replacing an employee costs one-half to two times their annual salary, according to Gallup. A written policy, paid time off and a funded allowance address some of the reasons people leave.
Stand out in a tight labour market
73% of employees facing fertility challenges said a role offering fertility support would appeal to them (Ferring, 2025), and 65% said they would change jobs for fertility benefits (Carrot, 2023).
Make fertility support financially predictable
An annual or lifetime allowance sets the employer’s maximum cost in advance. Private employers in Brunei already pay the first 8 weeks of maternity pay for local staff (BIPO, 2022).
Zora helps employers structure benefits around local costs, care abroad and the different rules for citizens and foreign staff, within an agreed budget.
Want to see what this would look like for your Bruneian workforce?
What IVF costs, and what the state pays
Brunei has no IVF registry, published IVF prices or national infertility study. The World Health Organization estimates that about 1 in 6 people worldwide are affected by infertility. JPMC’s Reproductive Medicine Unit lists ovulation induction, IUI, IVF, sperm banking and embryo freezing (JPMC). The Brunei dollar is exchanged at par with the Singapore dollar (MAS), so Singapore prices are a useful reference, labelled below.
| Treatment | Setting | Reported cost or status |
|---|---|---|
| IUI | RIPAS Hospital (Ministry of Health) | Offered (studies cover 2015 to 2020); no fertility fee in the scheme of charges |
| IVF | JPMC, Bandar Seri Begawan | No published price; ask the unit for a written quote |
| Egg freezing for non-medical reasons | Brunei | Not listed among JPMC’s services; no verified local provider or price |
| IVF, one fresh cycle (reference) | Singapore public centre (KKIVF), May 2024 estimate | S$12,000 to 16,000 before government co-funding |
| IVF, collection and fresh transfer (reference) | Singapore private centres, 2026 | S$11,100 to 16,900 before GST |
| Egg freezing (reference) | Singapore private centre (CARE IVF), 2026 | S$5,500 before GST, including 3 years’ storage, medication extra |
Sources: JPMC Reproductive Medicine Unit; Suhaili, Rehman and Alam, 2024; Sufiri, Rehman and Alam, 2024; Ministry of Health, Revised Scheme of Charges, July 2025; MissLobang, October 2026, which compiles clinic prices. Singapore co-funding is for Singapore citizens only. Ask clinics for current quotes.
| Item | Public support (or own savings) | What the employee still carries |
|---|---|---|
| Citizens and stateless permanent residents | B$1 registration and no service charges at government facilities or on referral to named specialist centres. No IVF or IUI fee is listed, and we found no published rule on Ministry funding of IVF at JPMC. | Any IVF cost JPMC charges, treatment abroad, and time off |
| Foreign permanent residents, foreign spouses and other foreign residents | None. Foreign residents pay Ministry of Health charges, and since 1 July 2025 so do permanent residents with a foreign citizenship and foreign spouses of citizens. Employers must insure Employment Pass holders for at least B$100,000 from 2025 (BIPO, December 2025); check whether fertility care is excluded. | Full cost, unless the employer’s insurance or allowance pays |
| Tax relief | None; Brunei has no personal income tax. | Full cost |
Sources: The Star, 4 July 2025; Ministry of Health media statement, 10 July 2025 (Malay); Ministry of Health, Revised Scheme of Charges, effective 1 July 2025; PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, reviewed 3 August 2026.
Age is one of the strongest predictors of IVF success. Brunei publishes no IVF success rates. In a RIPAS Hospital study of 199 women who had IUI in 2015 to 2019, 9% had a positive urine pregnancy test, with no significant difference by age (Suhaili and others, 2024). For comparison only, the Australia and New Zealand registry (ANZARD) for 2024 reports live births per egg collection (fresh own-egg cycles, excluding freeze-all) of 31.4% under age 30, 28.7% at 30 to 34, 19.0% at 35 to 39 and 6.3% at 40 to 44.
Rates fall with age and some couples need several cycles or travel abroad, so the size of an allowance, and when employees can use it, matter.
Give Employees Access to Fertility Specialists Across Asia
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 clinics in Brunei on the Zora app include Jerudong Park Medical Centre (JPMC) and RIPAS Hospital.
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 Brunei:
- Are local-plan employees covered, or only staff on international health plans?
- Do you require an infertility diagnosis before support starts?
- How do you work with JPMC as Brunei’s only IVF provider, and which clinics abroad, for example in Singapore, do you use when employees travel for treatment?
- How do you set eligibility in Brunei, where the only IVF provider describes its services as Syariah-compliant, and how do you support single employees who ask about egg freezing?
- How does the allowance work for foreign employees, who have paid full Ministry of Health charges since July 2025, compared with citizens who are exempt from most charges?
- How do you handle employee health data under Brunei’s Personal Data Protection Order 2025, including consent, transfers abroad and breach notification to AITI?
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: Bclass=”zc-note o-rng”>Range: 80,400 to B$510,400 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 Brunei’s Personal Data Protection Order 2025, fully enforced since January 2026, which has no special category for health data, so its general consent, purpose and security rules apply.
Clinics and doctors in Brunei
Zora’s directory lists 2 clinics and 3 doctors in Brunei. Locations include Bandar Seri Begawan. Both clinics list IVF and egg freezing among their services.
Employees can browse clinics in Brunei, see IVF clinics and find a doctor in Brunei on the Zora app. The directory is for information only and is not an endorsement. See Zora’s employer guides for every country.
Rules and eligibility in Brunei
Who can use assisted reproduction
We found no Brunei law on assisted reproduction, donation or surrogacy. JPMC describes its fertility services as Syariah-compliant (JPMC, 2026) and publishes no eligibility rules. In Sunni jurisprudence followed in many Muslim-majority countries, treatment is limited to a married couple using their own eggs and sperm, with donation and surrogacy excluded (Middle East Fertility Society Journal, 2019; the review does not cover Brunei). Confirm current rules with JPMC and local counsel.
Egg freezing
JPMC’s published services include embryo freezing and exclude egg freezing (JPMC). We found no Brunei rule on egg freezing for non-medical reasons or on storage limits. Take advice before funding elective egg freezing abroad.
Maternity, paternity and sick leave
Under section 91 of the Employment Order 2009, foreign female employees with more than 180 days’ service get 9 weeks’ maternity leave, 8 of them paid (Department of Labour guidelines). Since January 2011, under the Maternity Leave Regulation 2011, citizen and permanent resident employees get 15 weeks. In the private sector the employer pays the first 8, the government reimburses the next 5 and the last 2 are unpaid (BIPO, 2022); civil servants get all 15 weeks on full pay (Aston University study, 2018). We found no later amendment. The World Bank (Women, Business and the Law 2024) found no paid paternity or parental leave, and we found no published public service paternity entitlement. There is no fertility leave; staff use 14 days’ outpatient sick leave or annual leave.
Limited legal protection
The World Bank (2024) found no law prohibiting gender discrimination in employment or the dismissal of pregnant workers (data to October 2023). Ridzlan Lim (Chambers Employment 2021) notes that pregnancy is the only ground on which an employee can claim discrimination, and that employers and employees may agree flexible working within the limits on maximum hours.
Personal Data Protection Order
The Personal Data Protection Order 2025 (S 1/2025) was made on 8 January 2025 and, after a one-year sunrise period, has been fully enforced since January 2026 (AITI, June 2025). AITI administers it. Organisations must notify AITI within 3 days of assessing a breach as notifiable, meaning it is likely to cause significant harm or is of significant scale, and must designate at least one person, often called a data protection officer, to be responsible for compliance (sections 7, 26 and 28 of the Order; AITI, January 2026). The Order has no special category for health or other sensitive data, so its general consent, purpose and security rules apply.
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 Brunei?
No. The Employment Order 2009 has no fertility or IVF leave. Private-sector citizen and permanent resident employees get 15 weeks’ maternity leave (13 paid) and foreign employees get 9 weeks (8 paid). There is no statutory paternity leave. Employees in treatment usually use sick or annual leave.
Does the government pay for IVF in Brunei?
Citizens and stateless permanent residents pay a B$1 registration fee and are exempt from Ministry of Health service charges, but the Ministry’s scheme of charges lists no IVF fee and we found no published rule on IVF funding at JPMC, the only IVF provider. Foreign residents pay Ministry of Health charges, and since 1 July 2025 permanent residents with a foreign citizenship and foreign spouses of citizens also pay their own treatment costs.
Can employees freeze their eggs in Brunei?
JPMC lists sperm banking and embryo freezing, but its published services do not include egg freezing, and we found no Brunei rule on elective egg freezing. Employees may consider clinics abroad; a Singapore private centre listed egg freezing at S$5,500 before GST in 2026, with medication extra.
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 Bruneian 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 Bruneian team. No obligation.
Not ready to talk yet? Explore how Zora works
Sources
- Department of Economic Planning and Statistics, Brunei Darussalam Key Indicators 2025
- Jerudong Park Medical Centre, local access to IVF and fertility care in Brunei Darussalam, 15 August 2026
- Jerudong Park Medical Centre, Reproductive Medicine Unit
- Suhaili, Rehman and Alam, Factors influencing intrauterine insemination outcomes in Brunei females, Journal of Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, 2024
- Sufiri, Rehman and Alam, Clinical outcomes of intrauterine insemination for male infertility in Brunei Darussalam, 2024
- Ministry of Health, Brunei, Revised Scheme of Charges, effective 1 July 2025
- Ministry of Health, Brunei, media statement on the updated health service charge policy, 10 July 2025 (Malay)
- The Star, Brunei health ministry limits free health care to citizens and stateless persons, 4 July 2025
- MissLobang, IVF cost in Singapore 2026, updated October 2026 (compiles clinic-published prices)
- Monetary Authority of Singapore, Brunei-Singapore Currency Interchangeability Agreement
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Brunei Darussalam, taxes on personal income, reviewed 3 August 2026
- ANZARD, Assisted reproductive technology in Australia and New Zealand 2024, UNSW, August 2026
- Middle East Fertility Society Journal, Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws and regulations in Muslim countries, 2019
- Department of Labour, Brunei, Guidelines on employees’ rights under the Employment Order 2009
- BIPO, Understanding Brunei’s employment laws and regulations, November 2022
- Aston University repository, Paid maternity leave extension and exclusive breastfeeding practice: evidence from Brunei, 2018
- World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2024, Brunei Darussalam
- Ridzlan Lim, Chambers Global Practice Guides, Employment 2021, Brunei
- AITI, PDP essentials infokit, January 2026
- AITI, Overview of PDPO for organisations
- Personal Data Protection Order, 2025 (S 1/2025), Brunei Darussalam, via AITI
- AITI, DFCE 2025: cultivating trust and accountability in personal data handling, 4 June 2025
- BIPO Times, December 2025 (Brunei foreign worker medical insurance revision)
- Personal Data Protection Order, 2025 (S 1/2025), full text
- 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.