IVF Clinic Rates

Frozen or fresh embryo transfer: how often clinics use each

By Berkcan K., editor · Published 2026-10-24

Frozen transfers are now the normal case in US IVF. In the CDC’s 2022 clinic data, the median clinic reported that 91.9% of its embryo transfers used frozen embryos, across 435 clinics that reported the figure, and 36 clinics reported 100%. Only 12 clinics used frozen embryos in fewer than half of their transfers. Whether a frozen or a fresh transfer suits a particular patient is a clinical decision; the CDC clinic data can describe how often each is used, but they compare outcomes only for donor eggs, and even there the groups are not like for like.

What do “fresh” and “frozen” mean in the CDC report?

The CDC glossary defines a fresh embryo cycle as one “where fresh (never frozen) embryos are transferred,” and a frozen embryo cycle as one “where frozen (cryopreserved) embryos are thawed and transferred.” The egg and the embryo are counted separately: “Fresh or frozen eggs may be combined with fresh or frozen sperm to create fresh embryos.” So an embryo made from a frozen egg and transferred straight away is a fresh embryo in the CDC’s terms. In its national summary the CDC groups patient cycles as “Embryos from fresh patient eggs,” meaning embryos “transferred without being frozen,” and “Embryos from frozen patient eggs or embryos,” which “include fresh embryos from frozen eggs or frozen embryos.”

How common are frozen transfers at US clinics?

Percentage of transfers using frozen embryos, as each clinic reported it to the CDC for 2022, across the 449 clinics with a page on this site. Percentiles are calculated here across clinics, one clinic counting once.

Patient ageClinics reporting10th percentile clinicMedian clinicClinics at 100% frozenClinics under 50% frozen
All ages43566.8%91.9%3612
Under 3540366.1%94.5%719
35 to 3737667.8%94.8%737
38 to 4035565.4%93.5%7112
Over 4033259.3%87.1%3814

Even the 10th-percentile clinic freezes about two thirds of the embryos it transfers. The over-40 band is the only one where the median falls noticeably, to 87.1%. Per-band counts at 100% are higher than the all-ages count because a clinic with a handful of transfers in one band is more likely to have used only frozen embryos in that band.

State medians cluster in the same range. Among states with ten or more reporting clinics, the median clinic in Arizona reported 98.2% frozen transfers (10 clinics) and in California 96.1% (79 clinics), against 88.9% in New York (43 clinics), 83.7% in Illinois (19) and 82.9% in New Jersey (13). Those are differences in practice between groups of clinics, not in outcomes.

Why are most embryos frozen before transfer?

Two of the reasons patients give for a cycle point straight at freezing. In the CDC’s national summary for 2022, “Egg or Embryo Banking” was listed as a reason for 42.6% of ART cycles and “Preimplantation Genetic Testing” for 18.3% (more than one reason can be reported per cycle). The glossary defines a banking cycle as one “started with the intent of freezing (cryopreserving) all resulting eggs or embryos for potential future use.”

Clinic data show the link with genetic testing clearly. Grouping the 434 clinics that reported both figures by how often their transfers included an embryo with preimplantation genetic testing (PGT):

Share of transfers with PGTClinicsMedian share of transfers using frozen embryosClinics under 50% frozen
Under 25%7568.5%10
25% to 49.9%9182.2%1
50% to 74.9%13091.5%0
75% or more13898.0%0

Clinics that test embryos in most transfers freeze almost everything; nearly all of the clinics that still do many fresh transfers are among those that test least. This is an association across clinics, not a measure of which approach works better. Ask a clinic how it decides between a fresh and a frozen transfer, and how often its patients end up with a freeze-all cycle.

Does a frozen transfer have a different success rate?

For patients using their own eggs, the clinic report does not answer this. The CDC’s own-egg rates are cumulative: they “include embryo transfers that occur within 1 year after an egg retrieval,” so a retrieval’s fresh transfer and any later frozen transfers are counted together, and the clinic file does not split the live-birth rate by fresh versus frozen transfer.

Donor eggs are the exception, because donor rates are reported per transfer and by type of embryo. Nationally in 2022, 52.0% of transfers of fresh embryos from fresh donor eggs led to a live birth, against 45.2% for fresh embryos from frozen donor eggs, 45.1% for frozen embryos and 42.2% for donated embryos. Two cautions keep those numbers from settling the question. Fresh-egg fresh-embryo donor transfers are rare: 598 in the clinic data, at 50 clinics, against 18,449 frozen-embryo donor transfers at 363 clinics. And the CDC does not adjust any of these figures for which patients received which kind of transfer; it warns that “comparison of success rates across clinics may not be meaningful” because of different patient populations and methods, and the same logic applies to comparing groups of transfers.

What to take into a consult

  1. Look up the clinic’s frozen share on its page, by age band. A clinic far from the medians above does things differently, which is worth a question rather than a conclusion.
  2. Ask about the cost of a frozen transfer on its own, since most cycles now involve one; the cost questions guide lists what to ask.
  3. Compare cumulative rates, not transfer types. The comparison tool lines up two or three clinics’ CDC rates by band, fresh and frozen transfers included.

The decision about how and when to transfer belongs with a reproductive endocrinologist who knows your history; the CDC itself notes that average chances “may not reflect actual success rates during ART treatment for an individual or couple.”

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