Government agencies in China passed bans on the use of IVF in 2003 by unmarried people or by couples with certain infectious diseases.
In India, the use of IVF as a means of sex selection (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) is banned under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.
Sunni Muslim nations generally allow IVF between married couples when conducted with their own respective sperm and eggs, but not with donor eggs from other couples. But Iran, which is Shia Muslim, has a more complex scheme. Iran bans sperm donation but allows donation of both fertilised and unfertilised eggs. Fertilised eggs are donated from married couples to other married couples, while unfertilised eggs are donated in the context of mutah or temporary marriage to the father.
By 2012 Costa Rica was the only country in the world with a complete ban on IVF technology, it having been ruled unconstitutional by the nations Supreme Court because it "violated life." Costa Rica had been the only country in the western hemisphere that forbade IVF.  A law project sent reluctantly by the government of President Laura Chinchilla was rejected by parliament. President Chinchilla has not publicly stated her position on the question of IVF. However, given the massive influence of the Catholic Church in her government any change in the status quo seems very unlikely. In spite of Costa Rican government and strong religious opposition, the IVF ban has been struck down by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a decision of 20 December 2012. The court said that a long-standing Costa Rican guarantee of protection for every human embryo violated the reproductive freedom of infertile couples because it prohibited them from using IVF, which often involves the disposal of embryos not implanted in a womans uterus. On 10 September 2015, President Luis Guillermo Solís signed a decree legalising in-vitro fertilisation. The decree was added to the countrys official gazette on 11 September. Opponents of the practice have since filed a lawsuit before the countrys Constitutional Court.
All major restrictions on single but infertile people using IVF were lifted in Australia in 2002 after a final appeal to the Australian High Court was rejected on procedural grounds in the Leesa Meldrum case. A Victorian federal court had ruled in 2000 that the existing ban on all single women and lesbians using IVF constituted sex discrimination. Victoria's government announced changes to its IVF law in 2007 eliminating remaining restrictions on fertile single women and lesbians, leaving South Australia as the only state maintaining them.
Federal regulations in the United States include screening requirements and restrictions on donations, but generally do not affect sexually intimate partners. However, doctors may be required to provide treatments due to nondiscrimination laws, as for example in California. The US state of Tennessee proposed a bill in 2009 that would have defined donor IVF as adoption. During the same session another bill proposed barring adoption from any unmarried and cohabitating couple, and activist groups stated that passing the first bill would effectively stop unmarried women from using IVF. Neither of these bills passed.
In 2024, the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that embryos created during in-vitro fertilisation are "extrauterine children", and that an 1872 state law allowing parents to sue over the death of a minor "applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location." This ruling raised concerns from The National Infertility Association and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine that the decision would mean Alabama's bans on abortion prohibit IVF as well, while the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system paused IVF treatments. Eight days later the Alabama legislature voted to protect IVF providers and patients from criminal or civil liability.
Few American courts have addressed the issue of the "property" status of a frozen embryo.  This issue might arise in the context of a divorce case, in which a court would need to determine which spouse would be able to decide the disposition of the embryos.  It could also arise in the context of a dispute between a sperm donor and egg donor, even if they were unmarried.  In 2015, an Illinois court held that such disputes could be decided by reference to any contract between the parents-to-be.  In the absence of a contract, the court would weigh the relative interests of the parties.