Know before you go

Fully decriminalized since 2003 — the global gold standard

Fully decriminalized since 2022 — first EU country, with formal employment contracts available since December 2024

Legalized and regulated since 2002 — registration required

Legalized since 2000 — brothel ban lifted, licensing system

Legal and regulated — varies by canton

Varies by state — fully decriminalized in NSW, licensed in Victoria

Fully legalised and regulated via a dual federal-state system, with mandatory registration, taxation, and bi-weekly health checks

Selling is legal — brothels, soliciting, and pimping are illegal

"Alegal" at the federal level — selling is not criminalized, but third-party profiteering, street solicitation, and advertising face administrative and criminal restrictions

Neo-abolitionist model — selling sex independently is legal, but virtually all third-party facilitation is criminalized under the 1958 Merlin Law

Independent solo sex work is legal, but procurement is criminal and buying from a trafficking victim or pandered person is criminal — with a uniquely punitive Aliens Act backstop that deports non-EU sellers

Selling sex is legal since 1999, buying is legal, but every form of third-party involvement remains criminal under Straffeloven §233 — and SKAT taxes gross income while criminalising the largest legitimate business expense (workspace rent)

The 1956 Anti-Prostitution Law defines "baishun" so narrowly — vaginal intercourse for cash with an unspecified person — that an entire licensed adult industry (the "fuzoku") legally sells every other sex act under the 1948 Fūeihō regulatory regime

Selling sex is legal for adults, but brothels, pimping, and any third-party promotion are federal crimes under a 1936 abolitionist framework hardened by the 2012 anti-trafficking reform

Selling and buying sex are not criminalised since 1982, but every form of third-party involvement (lenocínio) remains criminal under Penal Code Art. 169 — closer to the Brazilian model than to Spain's alegalidad

Selling sex is not criminalised, but everything around it (procurement, brothels, advertising third parties) is — leaving sex workers in a "grey zone" since 1990 with no comprehensive prostitution law

Nordic Model since 2016 — selling legal, buying criminalized

Nordic-influenced model since 2014 (PCEPA) — selling legal, buying criminalized

Selling is legal and officially recognized as a profession (CBO 5198-05) — but every form of third-party involvement is criminalized, and violence (especially against trans workers) is among the highest in the world

Selling sex is legal and constitutionally recognised as labour since T-629/2010, but third-party profit (proxenetismo) is criminalised and Medellín has rolled out emergency decrees against sex tourism since April 2024

Selling and buying sex between consenting adults is legal (alegal/abolitionist), but every third party — brothels, agencies, drivers, even receptionists — is criminal under Kodeks Karny Art. 204

"Regulationist" model — legal on paper but functionally impossible: under 5% of working sex workers meet the registration bar

Legalised in 1999 with mandatory "tolerance zones" — but nearly no municipality has ever designated one, leaving most workers in permanent legal limbo and exposed to misdemeanour fines

Selling sex is not itself an offence and a small number of brothels are tolerated under a "Yellow Card" health-permit scheme in Geylang — but solicitation, pimping, unlicensed brothels, and online ads are all criminalised under the Women's Charter

Africa's only formally regulated sex-work regime — selling is legal for registered women 21+ with a current health card, but ~80% nationally work unregistered (and therefore illegally) under a 1969 colonial-era system

Selling sex is legal, but buying it is a criminal offence — and §315 procurement enforcement routinely pushes sex workers out of housing

The most aggressive abolitionist regime in Europe — buying is illegal, selling decriminalised, and a 2010 profit-from-nudity ban shuttered every strip club

Nordic Model since 2017 — selling is legal, buying is criminal, and two sex workers sharing a flat is prosecutable as "brothel-keeping"

Selling sex is decriminalised but buying is an administrative offence under the 2018 Nordic Model law, with enforcement that has eroded sharply since the October 2023 war

Selling sex by consenting adults is not itself a crime, but soliciting, brothel-keeping, living off earnings and procurement remain offences under ITPA 1956 — a 2022 Supreme Court order recognised sex work as a profession but police harassment continues

Selling sex is not a federal crime in Kenya, but the surrounding ecosystem — soliciting, brothel-keeping, living off earnings, and municipal bylaws in Nairobi and Mombasa — is criminalised under Penal Code Cap 63 ss. 153–156

Selling sex is decriminalised (administrative fine only since 2014), but all third-party involvement — pimping, facilitation, premises — remains criminal under Codul Penal Art 213, and the country is a major source for trafficking flows into Western Europe

Federal law does not criminalise the sale of sex, but each of Mexico's 32 states regulates independently — yielding a patchwork of tolerance zones, decriminalised capitals, and cartel-controlled trafficking corridors

Sex work is fully criminalized de jure under the 1996 Prostitution Act, but de facto tolerated through licensed "entertainment venues" — enforcement falls hardest on foreign and street-based workers

The regulated brothel (genelev) system remains nominally legal under 1930 and 1961 statutes, but a registration freeze since the early 2000s and ongoing Erdoğan-era closures have pushed virtually all sex work into an unregulated grey zone where trans workers face especially severe violence

The originator of the Nordic Model — selling is legal, buying is criminal, and since July 2025 the offence also covers paying for live remote sexual acts

Federal split: selling sex by adults is not explicitly criminalised for the worker in the southern Criminal Code (third-party offences only), but 12 northern Sharia/Penal Code states criminalise the act itself with caning, imprisonment, or in theory stoning

Fully criminalized — FOSTA-SESTA (2018) + state laws. Only legal in parts of Nevada.

Both selling and buying are criminalised under apartheid-era and 2007 laws, but a long-promised decriminalisation bill is nearing Cabinet submission in 2026 and the NPA has issued a prosecutorial moratorium on sellers

Selling, buying, and third-party facilitation are all criminalised under a 1930s-era Revised Penal Code that still defines "prostitutes" as women only, while a parallel, ever-expanding anti-trafficking regime drives the loudest enforcement

Vietnam criminalises both selling and buying sex under a 2003 Ordinance plus Penal Code articles on procurement/harbouring/buying from minors, with strong administrative penalties and intensifying online surveillance under the 2018 Cybersecurity Law

Sex work is technically legal under a 1931 French Mandate-era law, but no new brothel licenses have been issued since 1975, leaving almost all workers operating illegally while an "artiste visa" pipeline funnels foreign women into Maameltein's super-nightclubs under conditions documented as trafficking

Selling sex is an administrative offence and procurement a serious crime, all overlaid on an active war zone where displacement, IDP vulnerability, and front-line risk define daily reality more than the statute book

Aceh province operates full-criminal Sharia (Qanun Jinayat); the rest of Indonesia is now effectively full-criminal under the new KUHP (Article 411 extramarital sex + Articles 420/421 promotion of obscene acts capture nearly all transactional sex), in force since 2 January 2026

Egypt fully criminalises sex work under Law 10/1961 and weaponises "debauchery" provisions plus Cybercrime Law 175/2018 to entrap LGBT+ people through dating apps, with sustained intensified enforcement under President Sisi

Selling, buying, and all third-party involvement in sex work are illegal under both administrative and criminal law, with enforcement intensified under Xi Jinping-era "strike hard" campaigns and online-governance crackdowns

Both selling and buying sex are criminal offences under the 2004 Anti-Prostitution Special Act, upheld 6-3 by the Constitutional Court in 2016, with enforcement enabled by widespread cyber-surveillance and an "entertainment visa" pipeline that channels migrant women into the trade

Fully illegal — severe penalties including imprisonment and deportation

Selling is nominally administrative under CoAO Art 6.11, but the compounding effect of CC Art 240/241 procurement, the November 2023 "LGBT extremism" ruling, wartime emergency powers, and total collapse of civil society make Russia function as a fully criminalised, hostile state for any sex worker