Aim: to distinguish such outwardly similar legal phenomena in the form of irreversible transfer of a child from one person to another, such as child trafficking and surrogacy, primarily paid (commercial). Materials and Methods: In order to achieve the stated objective, the study employed a set of general scientific and specialized methods of cognition, including comparative law, the formal-logical method, historical method etc. More than 3 thousand records of the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the registration and results of pre-trial investigation of criminal proceedings on the facts of human trafficking, including on the facts of illegal surrogacy, were processed. 5 court verdicts from the Unified Register of Court Decisions were analyzed, and 6 criminal proceedings on such facts, in which the investigator or prosecutor made a decision to close them, were also studied. Conclusions: Due to significant differences from both the objective and subjective sides, surrogacy and child trafficking are different legal agreements, which makes it necessary to assess all the factual circumstances in each specific case when qualifying the act.