The Defense Department will begin reimbursing eligible service members for freezing and storing eggs or sperm under a three-year pilot program starting September 14, according to a notice published in the Federal Register. Reimbursement is capped at $10,000 a year for egg preservation and $500 a year for sperm retrieval and storage.
That gap between the two figures has been widely compressed in early coverage into a single headline number, and the difference matters for anyone deciding whether to participate. Egg retrieval is a multi-week medical process involving hormone stimulation, monitoring, and a surgical retrieval, and a single cycle plus a year of storage commonly runs at or above $10,000. Sperm collection and storage costs far less, with one company offering at-home kits at $595 for six storage vials and up to $1,295 for 18.
