IVF Success Rates in Canada: How to Interpret Them and Pollin’s Reported Results 2025

IVF Success Rates, Explained Honestly

What the national numbers show, what ours show so far, and the questions worth asking any fertility clinic, including us. Success rates are the most searched; and most misunderstood, numbers in fertility care.

Below you’ll find our first results since we started reporting to CARTR Plus (October - December 2025), the national registry every Canadian IVF clinic reports into, along with the context most websites leave out. If a number here raises a question, bring it to your consultation. That’s what it’s for.

How to read any clinic’s success rates.

Which number is being quoted?

“Success rate” can mean at least five different things:

1. Fertilization rate is how many eggs fertilized in the lab. 
2. Implantation rate is how many transferred embryos implanted. 
3. Clinical pregnancy rate means a pregnancy confirmed on ultrasound. 
4. Ongoing pregnancy rate means a pregnancy that is confirmed on ultrasound at 12 weeks.
5. Live birth rate — the number most patients actually mean — is only knowable nine months after everything else, so the newest data never includes it.

A clinic quoting one number when you’re asking about another isn’t necessarily hiding anything, but you deserve to know which one you’re hearing.

Success per what?

A rate per embryo transfer will always look higher than a rate per cycle start, because not every cycle reaches transfer. In 2025, only about one in six Canadian IVF cycle starts led to a fresh embryo transfer — not because cycles failed, but because most clinics
now freeze all embryos for genetic testing and transfer later. Neither denominator is wrong. They just answer different questions, and comparing one clinic’s per-transfer rate to another’s per-cycle rate tells you nothing.

Whose embryos are being counted?

Age of the egg provider is the single biggest factor in any success rate. Whether embryos were genetically tested (PGT-A) matters almost as much: transferring only tested, chromosomally normal embryos raises the per-transfer rate for any clinic that does it.
Own eggs and donor eggs are reported separately for the same reason. If a rate isn’t labelled with age group, testing status, and egg source, it can’t be compared to anything.

How many patients is the number based on?

A 60% success rate built on five transfers means three pregnancies; one patient either way swings it by 20 points. Registries and honest clinics publish their sample sizes; percentages without an n underneath deserve skepticism, including ours.

Who does the clinic treat?

Clinics that take on more complex cases; older patients, repeated implantation failure, multiple prior losses, will show lower averages while providing excellent care. A high number can reflect great medicine, favourable patient selection, or both, and the
number alone won’t tell you which.

This is why the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society cautions that clinic-to-clinic comparisons are unreliable, and why your own prognosis; not any clinic average, is the number that matters.

Pollin’s first CARTR Plus results.

Every IVF clinic in Canada reports its cycles to CARTR Plus, the national registry. Our Pollin Toronto clinic began reporting with cycles that started in October 2025, so this is an early look, not a full year; and we’ve included the sample sizes so you can weigh it accordingly.
Table: *Frozen embryo transfers, own eggs: October - December, 2025 (all figures per embryo transfer)

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Table Notes:_‍

<sub>1. Pollin data: CARTR Plus Annual Summary Report 2025 (BORN Ontario), Pollin Fertility Toronto, cycles started October–December 2025. National data: CARTR Plus, 2025, all reporting clinics. (See legal checkpoint, Section 6.)
2. Own-egg frozen embryo transfers only. Fresh transfers and donor-egg cycles are excluded because our totals (3 and 4 respectively) are too small to report as rates.
3. Clinical pregnancy: pregnancy confirmed on ultrasound. Ongoing: with fetal heartbeat at or past 12 weeks gestation. Definitions follow CARTR Plus.
4. At 47 transfers, differences of a few percentage points from the national average; in either direction, can be chance. We publish these numbers for transparency, not comparison.</sub>

An encouraging start.

In our first reporting period (October - December, 2025) our clinical pregnancy rates per frozen embryo transfer came in above the national average on every reported measure. We want to be straightforward about what that does and doesnʼt mean: with 47 transfers, an encouraging start is exactly that — a start. Weʼll keep publishing as the numbers grow, whichever direction they move.

Deliberate disclosures.

• Miscarriage rate included: even though ours is above the national figure (4 miscarriages among 47 transfers — within normal variation), publishing one number that doesnʼt flatter us is worth more trust than the four that do.

• No age breakdown: Our age brackets are 29, 13, and 5 transfers are still too small to publish responsibly. Weʼll publish age-group results when each group is large enough to be meaningful. Most clinics donʼt tell you that's why; we'd rather you know.

Why Pollin’s first reported success numbers look the way they did.

Two things about how Pollin practices treatment, shape every number above.

We rarely transfer fresh embryos. In 2025, more than 80% of our IVF cycles froze all embryos for genetic testing (PGT-A) before transfer. That's a deliberate clinical choice; transferring one tested embryo at a time is how we keep our single embryo transfer rate above 95% and twin pregnancies rare.

Tested embryos raise per-transfer rates; for any clinic. Because most of our transfers involve chromosomally normal embryos, our per-transfer rates naturally run higher than a national pool that includes untested transfers. Some of the gap between our column and Canadaʼs reflects that choice, not superior medicine. A clinic that doesnʼt tell you this is letting you draw the wrong conclusion.

What we can’t tell you.

Our live birth rate. Our first reported cycles began in October 2025, which means the first babies from those cycles will arrive in late 2026. Live birth rates are the number that matters most, and we wonʼt estimate ours before it exists. 

Weʼll publish it when the registry data matures; expected in 2027. Until then, treat any brand-new clinicʼs “success rate”; ours included, as a pregnancy rate, not a baby rate. 

It's a fair question to ask any clinic you're considering: “Is that figure clinical pregnancies, or live births?”

Questions to bring to your first consultation.

Success rates describe groups. Your consultation is about you. These questions will get you a more useful conversation at any clinic: 

1. Based on my age, ovarian reserve, and history; what is my realistic chance per transfer, not the clinic average? 

2. Do you recommend genetic testing (PGT-A) for me, and how would it change my timeline and odds? 

3. How many embryos would you transfer at once, and whatʼs your view on twins? 

4. If my first transfer doesnʼt work, what happens next; and what does the full plan look like, not just cycle one? 

5. How will I get my results and questions answered between appointments?

Frequently asked questions.

‍What is the average IVF success rate in Canada?

In 2025, the clinical pregnancy rate for frozen embryo transfers using a patientʼs own eggs averaged 44.2% per transfer across Canadian clinics reporting to CARTR Plus, the national registry. Rates vary substantially by age, embryo testing, and whether the rate is counted per transfer or per cycle started. 

What is a good IVF success rate?

Thereʼs no single “good” number, because clinics treat different patients and report different measures. A trustworthy rate is labelled with the age group, egg source, whether embryos were genetically tested, the denominator, and the number of patients behind it. 

Why do fertility clinics report different success rates?

Different patient populations, different measures (pregnancy vs. live birth), different denominators (per cycle vs. per transfer), and different use of embryo testing. The Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society cautions against comparing clinics on published rates for exactly these reasons. 

Does PGT-A testing improve IVF success rates?

Transferring a chromosomally normal (euploid) embryo raises the chance of success per transfer and lowers miscarriage risk, especially for patients over 35. It doesnʼt create embryos — it identifies which existing embryos are most likely to succeed. 

How many IVF cycles are done in Canada each year? 

Canadian clinics performed 19,767 egg retrievals in 2025, up from 17,858 in 2024, according to CARTR Plus registry data.