SALT LAKE CITY — Four years ago, an adoption with a private agency could set prospective parents back anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000, according to an estimate from the Children’s Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health.
But new numbers from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services show the most expensive adoption in the Beehive state during the last fiscal year cost far more than that: about $160,000.
Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, co-executive director of the group Utah Adoption Rights, criticized that number as a reflection of how the state’s historically loose adoption laws have led to surging costs for adoptive parents.
“As an adoption professional for nearly a decade, I cannot think of a justification for any placement costing that much money,” said Ranyard, whose group was among those advocating for a recent overhaul of the state’s adoption laws.
“And you know what? I also can’t think of a justification for an adoption costing half of that,” she added.
The average cost of an adoption in Utah declined from about $67,800 in the 2024 report to just under $60,000 in the last fiscal year, according to the report. But the upper limit “expanded dramatically” from a previous high of around $90,000.
Ranyard said the report shows how the state’s adoption costs have been influenced by “adoption tourism,” when agencies recruit vulnerable birth mothers to Utah from other states for the sole purpose of an adoption, in exchange for uncapped, pregnancy-related financial support.
“I think you look at certain line items that get tacked on with adoption tourism that don’t get tacked on if you stay in state,” she said.
Utah legislators exploring tweaks to adoption laws criticized as exploitative:
Among those are living expenses like housing, which the report shows cost an average of $12,800 per adoption and a high of nearly $56,000. Some Utah adoption agencies also regularly advertise online to out-of-state women, at an average price of about $12,600, with a high of $25,000.
"This is an expensive practice to continue transporting women to Utah for adoption,” Ranyard argues. “It’s expensive. And it’s not that it’s costing the state money, but it’s costing adoptive parents a lot of money.”
Ranyard is also concerned about “other” fees – which the report says include “gifts, property, or other items that have been or will be provided to the biological or preexisting parents of the child.”
Those costs reached an average of $29,300 per adoption in Utah, with a high of $73,400, according to the report.
“I can’t stress enough how simply outrageous that is,” Ranyard said, arguing that those items could be seen as an inducement for a birth mother to place her child for adoption.
“We are commodifying children and preying on desperate people on all sides of the equation,” she added.
Changing state laws
The rising cost of adoption was a frequently cited concern at the state Capitol earlier this year, as legislators debated and ultimately approved an overhaul of Utah’s adoption laws.
Among other changes, the new law imposed an $8,000 limit on living expenses that can be paid to birth mothers.
That change was sparked by stories that some agencies were providing birth mothers with an “envelope of a lot of cash” after they signed adoption paperwork, according to Rep. Katy Hall, the bill’s sponsor.
She told FOX 13 News in an interview this spring that she hoped that change would help reduce instances of coercive behavior toward birth mothers as well as reduce “astronomical” costs for adoptive parents.
“What this will do is put those caps on and say, ‘yes, we want to take care of the birth moms that are making this brave choice, but we also want it to be reasonable,’” she said. “And hopefully that will, in turn, decrease the prices of what adoption is costing people.”
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that the Office of Licensing and the newly-created Adoption Consortium are currently working to implement legislative changes. Last week, the consortium formalized a process for agencies looking to exceed the spending limits outlined in state law under special circumstances.
In those meetings, some adoption agencies voiced concern that the caps will make it more difficult for them to help birth mothers with “extreme needs.” Others have said they never expect to ask for an exemption.
As Ranyard considers the spending captured in this report, she believes the changes legislators have made to Utah's adoption laws have put the state on a “much better track” moving forward.
And she expressed hope that “by the next report,” which should be released in 2028, “we’re able to see a huge difference” in the prices prospective parents are paying.
‘Major cost drivers'
In its statement to FOX 13 News, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services provided additional details on agency spending that were not included in this year’s adoption cost report.
The department said nine adoption agencies reported expenditures of nearly $13.5 million for 229 completed adoptions.
The “major cost drivers" across those agencies, it added, were as follows:
- “Other” Fees & Administrative Costs: $4,220,213 (31.1% of total expenditures)
- Living Expenses: $2,712,161 (20.0%)
- Child Placing Agency “Other” Agency Fees: $2,136,948 (15.8%)
- Child Placing Agency Matching Expenses: $1,609,765 (11.9%)
- Child Placing Agency Advertising Expenses: $1,520,815 (11.2%)
- Legal, Medical & Maternal Expenses: Combined legal ($565,764.30), medical ($406,299.90), and maternal support ($368,808.10) expenses represented $1,340,872.30 (9.9%)
- Other Compensations & Public Funds: Other compensations totaled $14,949.58, while public funds accounted for $5,182