Japan

The Baishun Bōshi Hō (Prostitution Prevention Law, Law No. 118 of 24 May 1956, in force April 1957) defines prostitution in Article 2 as "having sexual intercourse with an unspecified person in exchange for compensation or the promise thereof" — read since the 1960s as strictly penile-vaginal coitus. Article 3 declares "no person may either do prostitution or become the customer of it" but assigns no penalty to either party for the act itself; penalties attach instead to soliciting in public (Art. 5), procuring (Art. 6), coercion (Art. 7), receiving compensation from another's prostitution (Art. 8), making prostitution contracts (Art. 10), and providing a place for prostitution (Art. 11). Everything outside the narrow "baishun" definition — oral, anal, mammary, hand service, bathing — is regulated commercial activity under the Fūeihō (Act on Control and Improvement of Amusement Businesses, Law No. 122 of 1948, amended 1985, 1999, 2005), which licenses six classes of adult business. Per Japan's Ministry of Justice, 209 Anti-Prostitution Act prosecutions were recorded in 2024 (73 brokering, 71 providing a venue, 28 soliciting). Diet committees are now openly discussing whether to criminalise clients, but as of May 2026 no client-criminalisation amendment has passed.

Tokyo's Yoshiwara (Taito-ku) is the country's densest soapland cluster — well over 100 venues — followed by Kawasaki's Horinouchi, Susukino in Sapporo, and Fukuhara in Kobe. Osaka's Tobita Shinchi remains the most flagrant loophole zone: roughly 150 shops are registered as ryotei restaurants, with women seated in genkan entryways. Delivery health (deriheru) — non-coital escort dispatched to hotels — is now the dominant fuzoku category. Tachinbo street solicitation around Okubo Park in Shinjuku's Kabukichō has exploded since 2023, driven largely by women repaying host-club debts; the Tokyo Metropolitan Police launched a sustained crackdown in October 2024, with 50+ arrests in a coordinated sweep including a high-profile 20-year-old alleged to have netted ~110 million yen targeting foreign tourists.

Japan's APPI (Act on the Protection of Personal Information, last substantially amended 2022) governs cross-border data transfers and breach notification but does not carve out specific protections for sex-worker data. Platform-level risk is low for fuzoku-aligned services (Cityheaven, deriheru aggregators operate without payment-processor squeeze), but international card networks routinely block adult charges from Japanese soaplands, so cash dominates.

Foreign nationals cannot legally perform sex work on any Japanese visa, and tachinbo arrests of foreign workers under the Anti-Prostitution Law are routinely paired with Immigration Control Act charges and deportation. Buyers face no criminal liability for the act of purchase under current law, but solicitation and engaging in actual vaginal intercourse via a brothel-like venue carry exposure. A large share of soaplands, pink salons, and delivery-health shops decline foreign customers outright; a "gaijin tax" surcharge is common at foreigner-friendly venues, mostly clustered in Yoshiwara, Kawasaki, and parts of Susukino.

Cityheaven (cityheaven.net) is the dominant fuzoku directory; fuzoku-ranking aggregators (Heaven, Mens-Esthe-Tokyo) operate openly; shop-direct websites registered with Prefectural Public Safety Commissions.

• SWASH — Sex Work And Sexual Health (Osaka, founded 1999)
• Polaris Project Japan — anti-trafficking hotline + support