Does Ontario law require a surrogacy agreement to be in writing to be valid?

Yes — for the automatic, non-court parentage route to be available, the agreement between the intended parents and the surrogate must be in writing and made before conception. A verbal understanding, even a detailed and good-faith one, does not satisfy this requirement and will not support the automatic recognition of the intended parents as legal parents once the child is born.

Without a qualifying written agreement, intended parents cannot rely on the streamlined route and would instead need to apply to court for a declaration of parentage, where a judge would have to be satisfied of the parties' intentions through other evidence — a slower, less certain, and more expensive process than having proper paperwork from the start. This requirement exists because parentage is one of the most consequential things the law decides for a child, and a clear, contemporaneous written record reduces the risk of later disputes. Anyone considering a surrogacy arrangement in Ontario should treat putting a written agreement in place before conception as a non-negotiable first step, done with independent legal advice.