In most discussions about salon licensing in the Canton of Neuchâtel, the focus is on conditions: who is allowed to be responsible, what documents the application needs, what happens during the first inspection. Few people talk about fees — even though they are listed in the Canton of Neuchâtel in their own ordinance, specified down to the franc, and have a peculiarity that doesn’t appear in any other position of a business plan: even a rejected license costs money.
This article takes exactly this level: not the requirements, but the price. What does the canton charge, for what, in what amount, when — and what is conspicuously not on the fee list.
Where the fees come from: Art. 17 LProst and the Ordinance of 2022
The legal basis is Article 17 of the Law on Prostitution and Pornography (LProst, RSN 941.70, from 30 August 2016). It is brief and consists of three paragraphs that together support the entire fee system:
- Paragraph 1: The responsible office charges a fee for the issuance, refusal, or revocation of a license.
- Paragraph 2: The license holder owes an annual flat fee for activities related to file management (suivi du dossier).
- Paragraph 3: The costs of inspections that have resulted in findings are charged to the license holder.
The amounts themselves are not in the law. Art. 29 Abs. 3 LProst delegates them to the State Council, and it has established them in the «Arrêté fixant les émoluments relatifs à l’application de la législation en matière de prostitution» from 14 December 2022 (RSN 941.72). This ordinance came into force on 1 January 2023 and repealed the 2016 version. Anyone who finds an older fee schedule online is reading the wrong text. The version published on rsn.ne.ch is current as of 1 January 2023; no later amendment was evident at the time of research for this article in September 2026.
Important for context: These fees are cantonal and uniform throughout the canton. Whether the salon is in Neuchâtel, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Locle, or Val-de-Travers makes no difference to the amount. This distinguishes Neuchâtel from cantons without their own sex work law, where costs run almost entirely through municipal construction and hospitality permits and vary from municipality to municipality.
The positions at the beginning: issuance, refusal, modification
Art. 1 of the ordinance lists ten positions. Four of them concern entry and ongoing file management:
| Position | Amount |
|---|---|
| Issuance of a license for a salon or escort agency | CHF 1,326.– to 1,530.– |
| Refusal of such a license | CHF 306.– to 408.– |
| Modification of a license | CHF 153.– |
| Duplicate for loss of license | CHF 51.– |
The first line is as expected. The second is the one that surprises: if you submit an application and receive a negative decision, you still pay — between CHF 306.– and 408.–. This is not a fine, but fee logic: payment is for the cost of review, not the outcome. In practice, this means that the costs of an application incur even if the requirements under Art. 18 and 19 LProst are ultimately not met.
Why an incomplete file becomes more expensive
Art. 1 Abs. 2 of the ordinance contains the sentence that makes the entire table flexible: where a tariff is given as a range, the fee is determined based on the time spent by the ORCT. The Office des relations et des conditions de travail thus decides within the range based on how much work a file has caused.
This creates a very concrete incentive. The documents that the application must necessarily include, according to the canton’s specifications, are known and comprehensively listed: copy of Swiss identity card or, for foreign nationals, the permit for self-employed activity, the certificate from a compensation fund regarding self-employed status, for legal entities a commercial register extract, a current criminal record extract, a copy of the lease, and the number and identity of persons working in the salon via the registration form. The forms on the cantonal website are current as of May 2026. Each document that must be requested later extends the effort — and the effort determines where within the range the invoice lands.
Anyone wanting to know what the authority actually examines when filling out the application and what obligations begin with the positive decision will find it in our text about the conditions that begin with the license rather than end. Here we’re concerned with what accounting sees.
The annual flat fee: CHF 1,224.– to 1,530.– for management, not for service
The most expensive ongoing position is the annual flat fee for „activities related to management of a salon or escort agency file“: CHF 1,224.– to 1,530.– per year.
Three things about this are decisive for planning.
First: The flat fee does not pay for a service you can call upon. It pays for supervision. This is legally permissible and explicitly intended here — Art. 17 Abs. 2 LProst speaks of file management activities, not of consideration owed to the business. The amount is thus a fixed cost block that applies regardless of how many people work in the salon and how well the year went.
Second: The flat fee applies to salons and escort agencies at identical rates. An agency without its own premises that only arranges and coordinates thus bears the same annual supervision cost as a salon with four rooms. Whoever chooses the structure does not choose savings at this point. How licenses are distributed across operation and person is shown by comparison with a canton where the operation holds the licenses, not the person.
Third: Art. 1 Abs. 3 of the ordinance contains a rule you should know before closing. If the activity is discontinued in the first semester, the annual flat fee is reduced by half. For a business whose closure is inevitable anyway, the date of deregistration can thus save several hundred francs. The reduction requires that the discontinuation is known to the authority — it does not follow automatically from the salon being factually empty.
What remains unclear in the opening year
To be honest where the ordinance is silent: the issuance fee (CHF 1,326.– to 1,530.–) and the annual flat fee (CHF 1,224.– to 1,530.–) stand in the ordinance as two separate positions side by side. The ordinance does not regulate whether and how the fee is charged prorated or additionally in the year of issuance. For initial budgeting, it is therefore prudent to account for both positions in the startup year — the definitive answer comes only from the ORCT for the specific case.
The inspection that triggers a bill
The most interesting position on the list is this: Inspections that have resulted in findings, CHF 306.– to 1,020.–.
It deserves attention because it kicks in before any sanction. No warning and no revocation is needed for this invoice to arrive — it is sufficient that an inspection found something. And inspections are no exception in Neuchâtel: according to the State Council’s response of 19 March 2026 to Interpellation 25.195, every licensed location is inspected at least once annually and in any case within three months of opening for the first visit.
What may be examined is set out in Art. 33 and 34 LProst and is far-reaching beyond what many expect:
- The inspection officers have the status of judicial police officers and are sworn in (Art. 33). Inspection bodies are the office, the Neuchâtel police, and other services designated by the State Council.
- Inspection may take place at any time, within the scope of respective jurisdictions and if necessary under duress (Art. 34 Abs. 1): premises and rooms, the identity of persons present, the rooms themselves, and registers, in particular the register under Art. 20 Abs. 1, accounting books and associated documents. Evidence may be taken away.
- For apartments and private rooms of persons who work in the salon or live there, an important limit applies: if these rooms are adjacent to the salon, access is governed by the provisions of the Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure regarding house searches (Art. 34 Abs. 2). The inspection visit thus does not automatically end at the apartment door — but it can only proceed further with the stricter criminal procedure requirements.
This means for cost purposes: even formal matters can be noted. An incompletely kept register, missing documents, prevention materials not visibly displayed — matters that are not crimes but can result in a finding, and thus a bill between CHF 306.– and 1,020.–, whose amount again depends on time spent. The mechanics run comparably in cantons with oversight of the operation, where the real work likewise begins after licensing with ongoing conditions.
The 31 francs that reveal the rhythm
One position seems almost incidental yet says the most about daily operations: first reminder for a document to be submitted, CHF 31.–.
This amount exists because documents are regularly due in Neuchâtel. The register under Art. 20 LProst must be reported to the ORCT according to the implementing regulation (RELProst, RSN 941.71) monthly by the 10th of the following month, in the form specified by the office; after the end of activity it must be kept for six months and then destroyed. If you miss this rhythm, you don’t create a scandal — you create a reminder for CHF 31.–, and in case of repetition the effort that the authority later factors into ranges. Photocopies are also priced: CHF 1.– per page, CHF .50 from the fiftieth page onward.
When sanctions become fee items
The sanction levels under Art. 22 LProst — warning, revocation for one to six months, definitive revocation — have their own prices:
| Measure | Fee |
|---|---|
| Warning (avertissement) | CHF 102.– to 306.– |
| Temporary or definitive revocation | CHF 510.– to 1,020.– |
This is where affected parties are most likely to stumble: Revocation of the license is charged. You pay for the decision that ends the business. Alongside this are measures that are not fees but administrative enforcement: Under Art. 35 LProst, the office can order the closure of rooms or removal of installations, if necessary with support from Neuchâtel police, and confiscate objects or assets under Art. 263 ff. StPO. And separate from that again is criminal law: Art. 37 LProst provides for fines up to CHF 40,000.– for intentional or negligent violations of law and implementing provisions.
Three levels, three different bills: fee for the administrative act, costs of enforcement measures, fine in criminal proceedings. They can overlap, and they have different legal remedies.The legal recourse against all decisions under this law — including fee notices — is governed in Art. 36 LProst: appeal to the department designated by the State Council, followed by appeal to the cantonal court, according to the rules of the Law on Administrative Procedure and Administrative Jurisdiction (LPJA) of June 27, 1979. That a successful appeal does not automatically save the business is something we have described in detail using the example of permit revocation and its deadlines — the fee for the challenged decision is the least of your worries, but it does apply.
What This List Explicitly Does Not Cover
Fee schedule 941.72 covers exactly one thing: the tasks assigned to ORCT by the prostitution and pornography legislation. Everything else costs separately and is governed elsewhere.
- Municipal costs. Art. 10 para. 2 LProst leaves it to the municipalities to set restrictions by location and time. Whether and which restrictions apply at the specific location and what fees a building permit or change of use triggers depends on municipal law and building law — not on the Arrêté. These amounts vary from municipality to municipality and must be inquired at the municipality; a canton-wide published overview of this could not be found for this article.
- A second permit procedure for hospitality businesses. For the specialized public establishments provided for in the law (établissements publics spécialisés, Art. 6 LProst), the permit runs through the trade police under the legislation on public establishments, with preliminary review by ORCT — with its own fees under that legislation. That a serving operation virtually always means a separate, second procedure is shown by the comparison case in which serving is the second permit.
- Social insurance and taxes. AVS contributions, taxes, and, if applicable, VAT have nothing to do with these fees and are handled through the compensation office and tax authorities.
Order of Magnitude: A Small, Precisely Recorded Field
To put the amounts in perspective, it helps to look at the current situation. According to the State Council’s response to interpellation 25.195, as of December 31, 2024, the canton of Neuchâtel had recorded 51 locations: 32 salons, 18 private apartments, and one specialized public establishment. On that date, 59 persons were registered, while in 2025 approximately 779 initial registrations of persons were received — a clear indication of how heavily the activity is characterized by short stays and rotation, while the number of licensed establishments remains small and stable.
For oversight, this means a manageable number of files to be monitored annually and inspected at least once. For the businesses, it means that the annual flat fee is not an anonymous administrative item: it finances oversight that actually knows the individual business. A coordination office pursuant to Art. 24 LProst, where the affected departments, interested private institutions, and specialists exchange information, supports this practice; at the time of this research, no imminent revision of the law or fees was apparent.
What This Means for Planning
Anyone wanting to open a salon or escort agency in Neuchâtel should have three figures in mind before submitting the application:
- Entry costs apply in any case. Approval CHF 1,326.– to 1,530.–, denial CHF 306.– to 408.–. An application that is clearly going to fail on one condition is not a free trial.
- The annual fixed-cost floor is CHF 1,224.– to 1,530.–, regardless of turnover, regardless of the number of people working, the same for salon and agency — and only halved if the business closes in the first half of the year.
- Compliance is a cost item, not just an obligation. Monthly reporting by the 10th, complete register, documentation, visible prevention materials. The alternative is CHF 31.– per reminder and CHF 306.– to 1,020.– per questioned inspection, with the amount based on the time effort you have caused the authority.
The pattern is consistent: Neuchâtel distributes the costs of oversight among the permit holders and makes the amount depend on the effort involved. Those who keep clean records pay at the low end of the ranges. Those who have to be pursued pay at the high end.
In any case, only the information and decision of the responsible authority are binding. For permits, notifications, registers, and fees, the Office of Relations and Working Conditions, Control Sector, is responsible, located at Rue du Parc 117 in 2300 La Chaux-de-Fonds; for location, zoning compliance, and any time or location restrictions, the municipality. The current forms and the governing statutes LProst (RSN 941.70), RELProst (RSN 941.71), and the fee Arrêté (RSN 941.72) are publicly accessible via the cantonal website and the Recueil systématique de la législation neuchâteloise.