Prostitution laws in Europe

The old­est pro­fes­sion in the world is sub­ject to com­pletely dif­fer­ent laws in dif­fer­ent parts of the world, and the sit­u­a­tion in Eu­rope in es­pe­cially com­pli­cated. There are es­sen­tially four dif­fer­ent ways in which Eu­ro­pean leg­is­la­tors ap­proach pros­ti­tu­tion:

The most sup­port­ive ap­proach, which could be called the Ger­man model (be­cause it has been com­monly ap­plied in Ger­man lands since the Mid­dle Ages), is to treat pros­ti­tu­tion like any other pro­fes­sion and en­force ap­pro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tion (cit­i­zens can be of­fi­cially em­ployed or self-em­ployed as pros­ti­tutes).

In this model, broth­els are run as or­di­nary busi­nesses (but may be re­quired to ob­tain a spe­cial li­cence first). Coun­tries fol­low­ing this model are shown in green on the map below. Note that Hun­gary and Latvia fol­low a sim­i­lar model, but broth­els are il­le­gal. Some­what sur­pris­ingly, Turkey and Greece fol­low the Ger­man model, but with strict reg­u­la­tions. As a re­sult, the vast ma­jor­ity of pros­ti­tutes in these coun­tries op­er­ate il­le­gally.

The lais­sez-faire model (shown in blue) nei­ther rec­og­nizes nor pro­hibits pros­ti­tu­tion. Pros­ti­tutes op­er­ate out­side the legal con­text and usu­ally do not pay taxes. Broth­els, pimp­ing, and other forms of ex­ploita­tion of oth­ers are pro­hib­ited (since there is no way to legally em­ploy a pros­ti­tute), but broth­els are usu­ally tol­er­ated and op­er­ate of­fi­cially as mas­sage par­lours or by-the-hour ho­tels.

The Swedish Model (more re­cently also called the Nordic Model) pro­hibits pay­ing for sex but ap­plies lais­sez-faire poli­cies to­wards pros­ti­tutes them­selves. In other words, if a per­son has sex with an­other per­son in ex­change for money, the pay­ing side com­mits a crime, whereas the re­ceiv­ing side does not.

This model was first adopted in Swe­den in 1999 but has since spread to other Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, in­clud­ing France in 2016. The coun­tries fol­low­ing this model are shown in vi­o­let on the map below, and the amount (or prison time) shown is the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment for the buyer ac­cord­ing to law.

Fi­nally, the pro­hi­bi­tion­ist model makes the act of pros­ti­tu­tion (sell­ing sex for money) il­le­gal, which means that the pros­ti­tute, not the client, com­mits a crime or mis­de­meanour. Coun­tries fol­low­ing this model are shown in red, and the amount (or prison time) shown is the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment for the pros­ti­tute.

Notet that in Lithua­nia, both sell­ing and buy­ing is il­le­gal. To sum­ma­rize, here’s a list of coun­tries based on the cur­rent laws:

Let’s ex­plain the method­ol­ogy used to cre­ate the map. When­ever pos­si­ble, I tried to work with pri­mary sources, that is, the legal code of each coun­try. Con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of dif­fer­ent lan­guages in­volved, it is fairly dif­fi­cult to guar­an­tee com­plete ac­cu­racy, but, to my knowl­edge, the map rep­re­sents the most de­tailed re­view to date (22/10/2017).

The penal­ties shown in the map are de­nom­i­nated in the local cur­rency in the legal code. To get the ap­prox­i­mate amount in EUR, I used the ex­change rates valid on 22/10/2017.