The DoD Is Launching a Fertility Preservation Pilot for Service Members

Military service doesn't always make it easy to plan when you want to start a family. For a service member, a deployment can change a lot of plans. That can leave some people thinking about fertility preservation earlier than they otherwise might.

Freezing sperm or eggs gives service members another option to preserve their fertility while they serve.

For years, some service members have had to piece together ways to pay for fertility preservation. Some have turned to nonprofits or discounted programs, while others have paid out of pocket.

The Department of Defense (DoD) introduced a new pilot program through a Federal Register notice on August 13, 2026. This program plans to reimburse eligible service members for some of those expenses. It also comes with specific reimbursement caps and requirements.

However, the details of the notice also matter: who can actually use it, what the Pentagon will pay for, and whether the program makes a real difference for the people it's meant to help. Here is how the new pilot works and what service members should know before relying on it.

How the New Fertility Preservation Pilot Works

The new demonstration project was created under Section 709 of the FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act. The Defense Health Agency (DHA) says the purpose of the program is to evaluate the utility, feasibility, and cost of reimbursing certain service members for fertility-preservation expenses.

The pilot will begin next month, September 14, and is scheduled to run for three years, unless it is extended or modified based on the results or other statutory requirements.

The three-year pilot will give the DoD a chance to see how the program works in practice. They will also gather feedback from participating service members and examine whether the program affects perceived readiness and retention.

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Starting a Family Can Be Complicated

The challenge of building a family can extend well beyond deciding when to have children. Deployments, injuries, time apart, and the cost of fertility care can all add to the burden.

Military Family Building Coalition shared accounts of service members dealing with out-of-pocket fertility costs, deployments that complicated treatment schedules, and difficulty accessing services not covered by their existing military health benefits.

We checked the documentation and found an account describing the challenges one service member and his wife faced while trying to build a family. After unsuccessful attempts at natural conception, they pursued IVF and later considered adoption, taking on significant financial and emotional strain along the way.

“I would not change a thing about my Army service; I love being asked to do difficult things for my country. While I’m proud of my service, I wish we had received more support in our efforts to build a family.”

His experience illustrates how difficult building a family can be for some service members, especially when deployments, injuries, time apart, and the cost of fertility care all come into play. Experiences like this have added to calls for the military to provide more support for service members trying to build their families.

It puts the Pentagon's new fertility preservation pilot into perspective, showing why support for family planning has been an ongoing need for some military families.

Why the Pentagon Is Stepping Into Fertility Preservation

Military service has a way of putting ordinary life decisions on a different schedule.

Someone may want children but know they are heading into a deployment. Someone else may be preparing for hazardous-duty work. Another service member may know that they and their partner will spend months apart.

Those circumstances also don't necessarily mean someone wants to delay having children. It could be complicated for everyone to find the right timing to have a child, given those factors. And for others, the challenge may be less about timing and more about fertility itself.

That can be especially complicated for service members in demanding operational roles. According to Ovoclinic, prolonged physical and psychological stress can affect the body in ways that aren't always obvious until someone is trying to have a child.

Fertility preservation is an option when military service, health, or other circumstances make starting a family more complicated. This is why the pilot program is now going to be available, because it could help military service members who are facing those kinds of challenges. It can help them keep the possibility of having children open for the future.

For one service member who shared his experience, he wanted to become a father even as years of demanding military service and fertility struggles made that goal increasingly difficult. After months of testing and trying to understand what was happening, he ultimately needed medical assistance to pursue the family he had hoped to build.

For years, service members who wanted to preserve sperm or eggs have had to navigate the cost themselves or look for help elsewhere.

Nonprofit organizations, like the Military Family Building Coalition and fertility programs, have helped fill some of that space, particularly for people who may not have been able to comfortably absorb the expense on their own.

With the help of lawmakers, such as Rep. Rick Larsen and Rep. Sara Jacobs, the government has been urged to step up into that same space, at least on a trial basis for now.

Who Qualifies for the Pilot Program?

The pilot program is open to certain active-duty members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. They must meet at least one of three conditions, as stated on the notice:

• Have received orders, including deployment orders, for duty that may qualify them for hazardous-duty pay under section 351 of title 37, United States Code;
• Are determined by the Secretary to be likely to receive those orders within the next 120 days;
• Will be geographically separated under orders from a spouse, domestic partner, or dating partner for at least 180 days, including sea duty.

According to DHA officials, the agency did not set these strict parameters itself.

“The eligibility criteria for the demonstration, including the specific types of duty assignments and the requisite periods of geographic separation, were explicitly mandated by Congress in the original statutory language of the National Defense Authorization Act,” officials said.

“DHA implemented these criteria to ensure strict compliance with the NDAA’s requirements.”

Simply being active duty or wanting to preserve fertility does not make someone eligible for the program. Another important detail to remember is that participation in the program is voluntary, and eligible service members can choose where they receive their covered services.

Service members will also need to check their unit's own policies and procedures and request leave or permissive temporary duty when necessary.

Those who qualify generally need to complete testing, retrieval, and cryopreservation before their orders begin to qualify for reimbursement.

Aside from that, those who qualify because they will be separated from a spouse, domestic partner, or dating partner for at least 180 days can receive the services before or during separation, as long as the services are available at their duty location.

How Does the Reimbursement Work?

There is a command-level step involved because DHA cannot independently authenticate operational orders. The Federal Register notice says that for the service member to qualify, they have to submit a commander's attestation, which they can submit through a DHA Form 459. The notice said that this is available on DHA’s website.

This attestation confirms that the service member met one of the eligibility conditions when the covered services were provided. The form must be signed by their commander or designee. The reimbursement request must include:

• Proof of payment sent to DHA’s email
• Complete, itemized invoices showing the dates of the covered services
• The completed and signed DHA Form 459

Requests must generally be submitted within 120 days of the date the covered service was provided. Service members can submit separate requests throughout the process or submit one consolidated request within 120 days of completing gamete retrieval and cryopreservation.

Incomplete forms or requests submitted after the 120-day deadline will be denied. DHA will issue reimbursement after reviewing and processing the required documentation.

Because it operates strictly as a reimbursement model, the structure still poses hurdles for those who cannot easily afford the upfront medical bills.

Julie Eshelman, Founder and CEO of Building Military Families Network, said this dynamic leaves a “heavy financial burden” squarely on the service member.

“Junior troops still have to pay thousands out-of-pocket today just to preserve their future families. We receive requests for financial support weekly, with military families desperate for financial assistance to pay for fertility treatments,” Eshelman said.

“When you pair that financial barrier with long waitlists at both Military Treatment Facilities and civilian clinics, many service members will simply run out of time before deployment. A policy on paper means nothing if service members can't afford or access it before shipping out.”

What Are the Covered Services of the Reimbursement Program?

The program will cover some parts of the fertility preservation process once a service member is qualified.

The notice says it would include gamete retrieval, associated medications, laboratory evaluation and imaging, medical testing needed for retrieval and cryopreservation, the cryopreservation itself, shipping, and storage at an appropriate private storage facility during the demonstration.

“The key difference between the Cryopreservation Demonstration and the options currently available is that eligible service members can now get reimbursement for all related procedures, medications, and storage,” Eshelman said.

However, she emphasized that the pilot has distinct boundaries.

“This doesn't expand TRICARE coverage, expand access, cover embryo creation, or cover procedures like IVF.”

However, reimbursement is subject to different annual caps for sperm and egg cryopreservation. The annual cap is $500 for sperm cryopreservation and $10,000 for egg cryopreservation. Those limits are established by statute.

DHA officials pointed out that these financial caps were handed down directly by lawmakers.

“DHA did not have visibility into the specific factors, market data, or calculations Congress utilized when setting these respective caps. Broadly, these amounts are intended to offset medical costs associated with the retrieval, processing, and storage of gametes,” DHA officials said.

“Because the caps were set legislatively, the degree to which they cover actual out-of-pocket expenses will be one of the areas monitored during the demonstration.”

The program also treats each service member's reimbursement year individually. The 365-day period starts with the first date on which that person receives a reimbursable covered service. Once that 365-day period begins, any additional eligible expenses will continue to count toward the same annual cap.

A service member can also participate more than once during the three-year pilot if they meet the eligibility requirements again, such as receiving new qualifying orders or facing another qualifying period of geographic separation. They would still be subject to the annual reimbursement limits.

The program does not cover every fertility-related procedure, though. The notice states that the embryo creation, in vitro fertilization, or other elective procedures are not eligible for reimbursement.

Can Service Members Receive Care Anywhere?

Service members also have a choice in where they receive care. They can use a military medical treatment facility with a reproductive endocrinology and infertility program or choose a civilian fertility clinic. Civilian providers do not have to be TRICARE-authorized.

Military facilities generally operate on a first-come, first-served basis and may not always be able to accommodate a service member's treatment within the timeline of their orders. They are also not required to give pilot participants priority.

The pilot gives eligible service members more options for where to receive care, but they will still need to consider availability and timing.

Rep. Rick Larsen First Proposed the Program

Rep. Rick Larsen (D, WA-02) first proposed a program to help service members preserve their fertility in 2017.

In 2024, he worked with Rep. Sara Jacobs (D, CA-51) to secure language in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Department of Defense to establish a gamete cryopreservation pilot program.

The members released a statement after the announcement:

“After nearly a decade of advocacy, starting next month servicemembers will be eligible to freeze their eggs or sperm before hazardous missions.”

“No one should be forced to choose between serving their country and starting their family. This program’s launch is an important step toward guaranteeing that members of the military have the support they need to have children,” the members added.

What Happens After the Three-Year Pilot?

Since the program is scheduled to run for three years, DoD will be looking at more than how many service members use the program. The department plans to evaluate:

• Participation rates, including by military branch and deployment status
• Total program costs and cost per participant
• Administrative burden and claims-processing outcomes
• Service member experience and satisfaction
• Potential effects on perceived readiness and retention

When asked what data will be most critical in assessing the pilot, DHA officials said it is too early to tell.

“DHA does not yet know which specific findings will be the most important in determining the future of the benefit,” officials said. “A comprehensive review of all collected data over the three-year demonstration will be necessary before making any future determinations.”

Advocates argue that this evaluation must look at the service members who are left behind by the current model.

“This pilot demonstration is a step in the right direction, but to fully evaluate a program's failure or success, it first needs to be accessible to all who need it,” Eshelman said.

“A reimbursement model will only be able to tell us so much if not everyone can afford the initial price tag... Evaluating this program at the end will be inevitable, but they need to include in that process how many wanted to participate but were not able to due to eligibility or financial circumstances.”

Given that some service members won't qualify, some costs will remain outside the program. However, this would give eligible service members another option at a time when military service can make building a family more complicated.

The department says it may extend or modify the demonstration based on the evaluation results or statutory requirements.

The results will give DoD information to consider when evaluating future fertility preservation support for service members.