Tubal sterilization is priced like two completely different products depending on where you walk in the door. At a family planning clinic it is a sliding-scale service that can cost nothing. At a hospital it is outpatient surgery with a facility fee, an anesthesia bill and a pathology charge, and the list price can clear $15,000.
Almost nobody with insurance pays either number, because the Affordable Care Act made female sterilization a no-cost preventive service. That leaves the cash market to uninsured people, people on grandfathered or exempt plans, and people who want a price before they commit. This guide uses figures published as of September 2026: Planned Parenthood’s national range, prepaid marketplace rates, four hospitals’ own machine-readable price files and 2024 Medicare claims data released in May 2026. It covers classic tubal ligation and bilateral salpingectomy together, because salpingectomy has largely replaced the older tie-and-cut in U.S. operating rooms and the billing works the same way.
What Does a Tubal Ligation Cost Without Insurance?
Prices below are published self-pay and prepaid cash rates read on September 4, 2026, plus 2024 Medicare claims averages released May 21, 2026.
| Service / Type | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| All in at a family planning clinic (Planned Parenthood) | $0 | not published | $6,000 |
| Laparoscopic tubal ligation, prepaid cash package (MDsave) | $4,946 | $9,579 | $14,136 |
| Hospital gross charge, laparoscopic tubal ligation or salpingectomy | $6,966 | not published | $15,131 |
| Hospital self-pay price for that same facility charge | $3,274 | not published | $15,131 |
| Postpartum tubal ligation, hospital self-pay | $442 | not published | $3,586 |
| Surgeon’s professional fee only, self-pay (UVM Medical Center) | $1,381 | not published | $2,647 |
| Salpingectomy surgeon’s fee, 2024 Medicare national averages | $672 (allowed) | $3,483 (submitted) | not published |
Planned Parenthood states that tubal ligation “can cost between $0 to $6,000, including follow-up visits,” which is the widest and most honest range published by anyone, because it folds in income-based discounts. MDsave, which sells prepaid procedure packages at participating hospitals, lists laparoscopic tubal ligation at $4,946 to $14,136 across 173 providers, with an MDsave national average of $9,579 against an estimated open-market average of $20,053.
Hospital price files fill in the rest. St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise (file dated March 25, 2026) posts a $15,131 gross charge for the laparoscopic tubal ligation, occlusion-device and salpingectomy codes alike, and $8,592 for the open abdominal or vaginal version. Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center in Houma, Louisiana (file dated April 1, 2026) posts $6,966.33 gross for the laparoscopic salpingectomy code. Denver Health Medical Center (file dated April 30, 2026) posts $1,263.77 gross for a postpartum tubal ligation done after a vaginal delivery.
What Drives the Price
The facility fee, not the surgeon. At the University of Vermont Medical Center, the surgeon’s own self-pay fee for a laparoscopic tubal ligation is $1,521, and for a laparoscopic salpingectomy it is $2,647. The facility side of the same case is a different order of magnitude: UVM’s negotiated rates with commercial insurers for the outpatient facility charge run $5,879.87 to $8,819.81 for the tubal ligation code and up to $9,690.66 for the salpingectomy code. Whoever bills the operating room sets your total.
Which operation you get. Bilateral salpingectomy removes both tubes rather than blocking them, and it is now the more common sterilization in U.S. hospitals. In 2024 Medicare claims data, the laparoscopic salpingectomy or oophorectomy code accounted for 12,178 facility-setting services nationally, while the classic laparoscopic tubal occlusion code accounted for just 17, which is far too thin to draw a price from. On paper the two can price identically: St. Luke’s charges $15,131 for either. But billed with a bilateral modifier, the salpingectomy code doubles at St. Luke’s to $30,262.
Timing around a birth. A tubal ligation done during the same hospital stay as a delivery skips a second facility setup, and the pricing shows it. Denver Health’s self-pay price for a postpartum tubal ligation after a vaginal delivery is $442.32. UVM’s outpatient facility charge for the same code is $3,586. Both are a fraction of a standalone laparoscopic case.
Anesthesia and pathology. General anesthesia is a separate bill from a separate group, and if the tubes are removed they go to pathology, which generates another. Neither shows up in a quote for “the surgery.” See our anesthesia cost guide for what that line typically runs.
Where the hospital sits. Regional variation on this procedure is large enough that a national average is close to useless for budgeting. The MDsave spread alone, $4,946 to $14,136, is almost a factor of three across the same prepaid product.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
If you have an ACA-compliant plan, this is not a decision. HealthCare.gov lists “sterilization procedures” among the preventive services that plans must cover “without charging a copayment or coinsurance,” with an exception for plans sponsored by certain exempt religious employers. Paying cash when you have that coverage means paying for something the plan owes you at zero.
For the uninsured, the useful question is whether a hospital discounts its self-pay price at all, and the answer is a coin flip. Denver Health prices this line’s discounted cash rate at 35 percent of gross, so its $1,263.77 postpartum tubal ligation charge becomes $442.32 to a self-pay patient. Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center prices the laparoscopic salpingectomy at $6,966.33 gross and $3,274.17 cash, a discount of roughly 53 percent. But St. Luke’s and UVM both encode the discounted cash price identical to gross on every one of these codes, meaning their posted self-pay rate is the full list price.
That is not a small distinction. It is the difference between a $3,274 bill and a $15,131 one for surgery that takes the same forty minutes. Look up the file before you book, using our guide to hospital price transparency.
One more oddity worth knowing: at UVM the $3,586 self-pay price for a postpartum tubal ligation sits above the top of that hospital’s entire commercial payer range for the same code, which tops out at $3,530.06. A posted cash price is a starting number, not a floor.
How to Pay Less
Start at a Title X clinic, not a hospital. Title X family planning projects are required to charge nothing to clients from a low-income family, defined as family income at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, and to discount on a sliding scale for incomes between 101 and 250 percent. That is the mechanism behind Planned Parenthood’s $0 low end. Our guide to free and sliding-scale clinics explains how to find one and what to bring.
Ask whether Medicaid would cover it in your state. Sterilization is a covered family planning service in Medicaid, and many states run family planning expansion programs with higher income limits than regular Medicaid. The catch is the federal Consent for Sterilization form (HHS-687), which states the operation “will not be done until at least 30 days after I sign this form” and that the patient must be at least 21. Plan the calendar around it.
Price the ambulatory surgery center separately from the hospital. The facility fee is the swing factor, and a freestanding surgery center’s is usually lower than a hospital outpatient department’s. Ask for the CPT code the surgeon plans to bill (58670, 58671, 58661 or 58600) and get a written estimate from each site.
Ask for the self-pay rate in writing, then negotiate. Because roughly half of hospitals post a cash price identical to gross charges, the posted number is often just an opening bid. Our negotiation guide covers the script, and the fair price tool helps you check a quote against benchmarks before you call.
Apply for charity care before the surgery, not after. Nonprofit hospitals must have a written financial assistance policy, and many discount or zero out bills well above the poverty line. Read our walkthrough of hospital charity care and apply in advance, since eligibility often turns on income at the time of service.
Demand an itemized bill afterward. Sterilization bills routinely arrive with separate line items for the surgeon, the facility, anesthesia and pathology, and duplicates are common when four entities bill for one afternoon. Our guide to reading an itemized hospital bill shows what to look for.
The Bottom Line
If cost is the only variable, a Title X or Planned Parenthood clinic is where the $0 to $6,000 range comes from, and a hospital operating room is where the $15,131 comes from. In between sits the prepaid market, at roughly $4,946 to $14,136 with a $9,579 average.
It is also worth pricing the alternatives before you commit, since the cost logic differs sharply. A vasectomy is dramatically cheaper for a couple deciding between the two, and long-acting reversible options like an IUD or Nexplanon carry their own cash prices, covered in our birth control cost guide. If you are researching this because a past sterilization is now something you want undone, see our guide to tubal reversal cost, which is a very different and entirely uninsured market.