The Federal Court decided in late August that the manager of a Vaud erotic salon must personally bear responsibility for unpaid social insurance contributions. Watson reported on the case on September 17, 2026, after the judgment (9C_367/2026) was published.
What It Was About
The business treated the women working in the salon as self-employed and accordingly did not remit contributions. The compensation office subsequently demanded the contributions. The manager argued that the legal situation had been unclear: he had relied on an alleged cantonal practice and on advice from his tax advisor stating that EU sex workers on assignments under 90 days would be considered self-employed.
The Federal Court rejected this. No such practice was documented, and in case of legal uncertainty, he should have inquired with the compensation office. What mattered was how the business was actually organized: According to Watson, the company „among other things set the prices and collected money from customers.“ The women were therefore integrated into the business as if they were employees. The court deemed the behavior grossly negligent — damages of around 254,000 francs, plus 8,000 francs in court costs.
What This Means for the Industry
The case touches on a perennial issue: The 90-day reporting procedure governs whether someone is allowed to work here — it says nothing about whether someone is self-employed from a social insurance perspective. This status is assessed individually by the compensation office based on actual conditions: Who sets prices, who collects payment, who determines work hours, who owns the infrastructure.
In practice this means: If you work in a salon but neither control prices nor payment collection, you may be considered not self-employed — in that case, the business would have to remit AHV/IV/EO contributions, and depending on the circumstances, also accident and unemployment insurance. If this remittance is missing, gaps emerge in pensions, daily benefits, and accident coverage that are hardly closable later. And if you really do work self-employed, you’re much safer with written recognition from the compensation office than with a verbal assurance at the salon.
How is it regulated for you — have you had your status confirmed in writing by the compensation office, or does it just run as „self-employed“ at the salon?