Adoption Costs: International

Several days ago I wrote about the costs of domestic adoption falling into the $15,000-25000 range. But where does the international, or intercountry, adoption cost fall?

Unfortunately, it depends upon the country on decides to adopt from. Our first adoption was completed in Russia and ran into the upper 30’s with travel, adoption fees, and baby gear. With medical issues that surfaced after we returned home we are well into $50,000. Luckily we had/have decent insurance that covers most of our medical care or we would be in a lot more trouble.

Here, from the Adoption Guide is a work-up of intercountry adoption fees from 2005. Many of these averages have gone up significantly.

From the same site:
# The majority of domestic newborn adoptions cost less than $20,000, while more than 75 percent of international adoptions cost more than $20,000.
# The majority of adoptions from China and Korea cost less than $25,000.(I believe this has gone up due to the long wait times and paper renewals)
# The majority of adoptions from Guatemala cost between $25,000 and $30,000.
# The majority of adoptions from Russian and Kazakhstan cost more than $30,000.
# 29 percent of domestic adopters had at least one failed adoption before successfully adopting.
# The majority of failed adoptions cost less than $5,000. This is true of our Guatemalan adoption. We paid a registration and application fee of $5,000 and will lose that if our agency can not process anything.

For waiting and adoptive families I highly recommend getting a subscription to to stay up to date on ALL adoption news.