Fertility treatment with a donor: Victoria’s registers and the right to know

The registers

Two registers, both with the Department of Health

The Act tells the Donor Conception Registrar to keep the Central Register, in whatever way the Registrar decides (s 53). The department describes the Registrar as one of its own employees, and says the Central Register is managed by that office.

The Voluntary Register works on a different footing. The department calls it a pathway built on consent: people linked by donor conception, whether donor-conceived, parents, donors or other eligible relatives, can use it to find and connect with each other if they are willing.

Both registers moved to the Department of Health in early 2025, after the Act was changed. Until then the work sat with the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), whose functions passed to the Secretary of the department and a new Donor Conception Registrar from 1 January 2025.

The law

What the Act gives donor-conceived people

Among the guiding principles Parliament set at the start of the Act is that children born from donated gametes have a right to information about their donors (s 5(c)).

Section 59 puts that into practice. When a person born from a donor treatment procedure applies, and that person is an adult, the Registrar must give them identifying information about another person, subject to Division 3A of the Act. Information that identifies no one else is released to any applicant under s 57. Children may apply too, under conditions the right-to-know folio sets out.

Timing matters. The Act calls a person who donated gametes before 1 January 1998 a pre-1998 donor, and a separate section governs when their identifying information is released. The folio on donors from before 1998 explains it.

Folios

Five folios, one question each

1. 01
   Victoria’s two registers

   What the Central Register and the Voluntary Register each hold, who keeps them, and what changed when they left VARTA.

2. 02
   The right to know your donor

   The principle in s 5, the duty in s 59, and the Act’s conditions for an applicant who is still a child.

3. 03
   Donors from before 1998

   Who counts as a pre-1998 donor, the four months the department describes, and contact preferences.

4. 04
   Applying to the Central Register

   Who may apply, the Statement of Reasons, the fee for 2026/27 and when it is waived.

5. 05
   The Donor Conception Registrar

   The office the Act creates, the duties it carries, and how it took over from VARTA.

Current position

Where applications stood on 9 October 2026

The department’s pages, as they read on that date, describe a register still working through a backlog. One says applications to the Central Register have been delayed, and that the Registrar expected to begin releasing information in stages from June 2026. Another says release of non-identifying information has begun, with applications from donor-conceived people going first, and that the department expects to begin releasing identifying information in late 2026.

Anyone who has already applied to the Central Register does not need to apply again: the department says those applications were recorded and are still active.

Support

Counselling and explanatory material

The department says counselling is available free and in confidence to anyone eligible to use the Central Register or the Voluntary Register. The Registrar is also responsible for giving people material that explains the application process, what a disclosure can lead to, and what support exists.

About this site

How these pages were written

Every fact here comes from the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, its 2019 Regulations, and the Victorian Department of Health’s own pages, all listed at the foot of each page. The site covers Victoria only. It names no clinic, counsellor, donor or donor-conceived person, and where a source is silent, so is the page.