«Camere luminose ed accoglienti in affitto vicino a Bellinzona, nel rispetto delle leggi vigenti.» Bright, welcoming rooms for rent near Bellinzona, in compliance with applicable laws. The «Corriere del Ticino» quoted this ad on October 10, 2025 from a well-known portal in Italian-speaking Switzerland. The decisive sentence is hidden in the fine print of geography: The municipality described as «near Bellinzona» is not a Ticino municipality. It is in the Mesolcina – and thus in the Canton of Graubünden.
Whoever reads such an ad reads it in Italian. They book in Italian, drive from Bellinzona train station a quarter hour up the A13, and land in a legal space that has practically nothing in common with the Ticino regime. The market is the same, the language is the same, the authority is different – and it is precisely at this seam that most misunderstandings about permits, registration requirements, and jurisdictions in the Graubünden south will arise in 2026.
One canton, three official languages – and a south that looks south
Graubünden is the only canton with three official languages. Art. 3 para. 1 of the Cantonal Constitution (BR 110.100) stipulates that German, Romansh, and Italian are the equally-weighted national and official languages of the canton. The Language Act (SpG, BR 492.100, in force since 2008) specifies this for municipalities and regions: Where at least 40 percent of the population belongs to an indigenous language community, that language is the official language of the municipality; from 20 percent, the municipality is considered multilingual. According to the 2024 structural survey by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, around 13 percent of the canton’s population cite Italian as their main language.
These 13 percent are not distributed evenly. They concentrate in the southern valleys: in the Moesa Region with its twelve municipalities – Roveredo, San Vittore, Grono, Lostallo, Mesocco, Soazza, Cama, Verdabbio is now part of Grono, plus Buseno, Castaneda, Santa Maria in Calanca, Calanca and Rossa – and around 8,500 inhabitants; in the Bergell (Bregaglia), which borders Chiavenna; in the Puschlav (Poschiavo and Brusio, Bernina Region), which borders Tirano.
In practice, this means: Whoever works in San Vittore is closer to a Ticino hospital, a Ticino train station, and a Ticino advisory service than to any Graubünden office. Chur lies beyond the San Bernardino, more than a hundred kilometers away. But jurisdiction is determined not by driving time, but by the cantonal border – which runs at San Vittore, a few kilometers past the edge of Arbedo-Castione.
What ends at this border: the Ticino regime
Ticino is one of the most densely regulated cantons in Switzerland. The Legge sull’esercizio della prostituzione (LProst, RS/TI 550.500) of January 22, 2018 has been in force since July 1, 2019 and requires anyone offering sexual services in Ticino to make a personal appearance at the Sezione TESEU of the Cantonal Police. There, the ID is checked, a CHF 100 fee is due when signing the registration, and you receive your own TESEU number. In addition, there is a tax daily flat rate of CHF 25 per working day as an advance, the rule „one person per apartment and one apartment per building“, a rental or sublease contract of at least three months’ duration, a fine range of CHF 200 to 40,000, and a catalog of prohibited locations under Art. 3 LProst: street prostitution, publicly visible practice, proximity to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, places of worship, cemeteries, public transport stops, public buildings and playgrounds – and zones that the land use plan predominantly designates for residential use.
The Ticino municipalities have also enacted their own ordinances. Chiasso has restricted sex work to a single zone with seven plots, Mendrisio works with radii of 100 and 300 meters, and Bellinzona already chose in 2015 the path via a variation of the Piano regolatore: With a new Art. 19bis of the land use plan provisions, the city council anchored the concept of „immaterial disturbance“ to keep residential zones, mixed zones with residential components, and sensitive zones free from the practice of prostitution. We have described in detail how this regime functions – permit for an erotic locale, operator obligations, grounds for revocation – in the portrait of the Canton with its own sex work law.
And here is the point that is constantly underestimated in the Graubünden south: None of this applies north of San Vittore. No TESEU number, no CHF 100 at registration, no CHF 25 daily flat rate, no one-person-per-apartment rule, no cantonal fine range for unauthorized practice. Whoever moves from Ticino to the Mesolcina does not move into a more liberal procedure – they move into a procedure that starts at completely different points and does not hand anyone a receipt saying „registered“.
What applies in Graubünden instead
No cantonal permit, but multiple contact points
Graubünden has no sex work law. There is no cantonal registry, no registration office for the activity as such, and no permit that one could apply for „for sex work“. The government confirmed this in its response of August 12, 2025 to the Rutishauser inquiry (submitted in the June 2025 session, co-signed among others by Moesa regional council members Piera Furger and Eleonora Righetti, discussed in the October 2025 session): The canton does not collect systematic and complete data on the number of sex workers, and no statistics are kept on police operations in apartments.
What is missing is replaced by general law – and this often hits reality harder than a special permit:
- Spatial planning and building law. The Spatial Planning Act for the Canton of Graubünden (KRG, BR 801.100, in Italian Legge sulla pianificazione territoriale, LPTC) makes not only construction, but also change of use subject to approval. Whoever converts an apartment or storefront into an erotic business needs a building permit from the municipality, and the zoning regulations determine whether that is even possible. Why this procedure in Graubünden effectively takes on the role that the special law plays in Ticino is shown in the article on how the building application determines the business.
- Hospitality law. Once beverages are served or accommodation is provided, the Hospitality Act (BR 945.100) applies with its own permit – issued by the municipality, not the canton.
- Municipal police law. Here Chur remains an exception to this day: Art. 26 para. 2 and 3 of the Police Act of the City of Chur (RB 411) allows street prostitution only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and permits further local and temporal restrictions. In the Moesa municipalities, no comparable, explicit provision is found in the published police regulations. This does not mean there isn’t one – the only binding information is from the municipal office, and the regulations are being revised.
- Criminal law. Art. 195 StGB (promotion of prostitution) and Art. 199 StGB (unauthorized practice of prostitution, i.e., violation of cantonal or municipal provisions) apply nationwide. Art. 199 StGB is the hinge article: Where a municipality enacts provisions, federal criminal law makes their violation punishable.
- Social insurance and taxes. The SVA Graubünden (Ottostrasse 24, 7001 Chur) registers the self-employed: Minimum contribution CHF 530 per year, maximum 10.0 percent from CHF 60,500 net income, advance contributions usually quarterly. The tax administration requires tax returns by March 31, the cantonal tax rate is 95 percent, municipal tax rates vary considerably. VAT liability arises from CHF 100,000 in turnover. What these offices specifically want from a self-employed person is detailed in the article on Contribution number instead of permit.
Registration requirement: Who registers what, and where
The registration requirement is the point where Graubünden and Ticino come closest to each other – only in Graubünden it does not run through the police, but through foreigners’ law.
For nationals of EU and EFTA countries: An employment activity of no more than 90 days per calendar year requires no permit, but registration. With an employment, the employer registers by the day before the employment begins – since March 2025 online via EasyGov. Self-employed persons register themselves in the same procedure. The Department of Migration and Civil Law Graubünden is responsible for residence and permits; registrations at employment start are forwarded to the Department of Industry, Trade and Labor according to the government’s statement – but are not statistically evaluated by occupational category. Precisely for this reason, the canton cannot name a figure.
Two details that regularly get lost in the south:
The 90 days are an annual contingent per person, not a credit per canton. If someone was registered in Ticino for six weeks in spring, they do not have 90 free days again in autumn for the Mesolcina. Federal law counts per calendar year and for Switzerland as a whole, regardless of how many cantonal borders are in between. Whoever operates the tour model over the alpine ridges is thus working against a single account.
For third-country nationals, there is no permit path tailored to sex work. What matters is solely which residence permit with which employment purpose is held. The dancer status, which formed its own category until the end of 2015, has been abolished since January 1, 2016; EU/EFTA sex workers have been treated like any other occupational group under foreigners’ law since then.
The language gap that is not a legal gap
At the canton itself, Italian is not a problem. The administration maintains its pages in three languages, the legal collection is available in Italian, the application form for EU/EFTA permits exists in Italian, and the canton maintains its own service for translations. Whoever submits a building application, a registration with the equalization fund, or an inquiry to the migration office in Italian does nothing unusual, but uses an official language.
The gap lies not in the law, but in the advisory infrastructure. The cantonal office for sexual health is Aids-Hilfe Graubünden at Lürlibadstrasse 15 in Chur – active since 1987, with outreach prevention for sex workers and a testing service on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It sits in the German-speaking cantonal capital, beyond the San Bernardino. Whether Italian-language counseling is possible must be asked directly; it is not published.
Conversely, a mere 15 minutes’ drive away, there exists precisely what is missing in the Graubünden south: Primis, a service of Zonaprotetta at Via Bagutti 2 in Lugano, mandated since 2006 by the Ticino State Council as the reference point for health, social and legal advice to sex workers, with language and cultural mediators who meet newcomers directly during police registration. Plus the Consultori di salute sessuale of the Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale in Bellinzona, Locarno, Lugano and Mendrisio. This network is oriented toward the Canton of Ticino – its mandate ends where jurisdiction ends. Whoever works in Roveredo thus faces a choice between an expert office in the right canton with the wrong language distance and an expert office in the right language with the wrong cantonal mandate.The government sees no need for action. It currently does not want to establish a specialized, centralized point of contact exclusively for sex workers; existing advisory services and low-threshold offerings are considered sufficient. The questioner declared herself unsatisfied during the October 2025 session. How the same gap affects the area north of the passes is shown in the article about the point of contact that is missing in Graubünden.
Four Questions That Should Be Clarified Before the First Day of Work
- Municipality. In which zone is the address located, and is a building permit required due to change of use for the intended use? The responsible body is the municipal office or the communal building department – not the canton. Additionally, ask about the applicable police regulations and when they were last revised.
- Migration. Is notification required in the 90-day procedure or is a permit needed? How many days of the annual quota have already been used, including from assignments in other cantons? The responsible body is the Office for Migration and Civil Law Graubünden.
- Social Insurance and Taxes. Is self-employment registered with the SVA Graubünden, and are the provisional contributions realistically estimated? Is it clear whether the activity is considered self-employed for tax purposes – or whether the business in which work is performed actually has de facto authority to give instructions?
- Contract and Premises. Does the rental or sub-rental agreement cover the actual use? Graubünden lacks the Ticino three-month rule, but tenant law and the landlord’s interest remain the same.
Conclusion: Same Market, Two Procedures
The southern Graubünden is linguistically and economically part of Italian-speaking Switzerland and legally part of a canton without a sex work law. This combination creates a peculiar asymmetry: In Ticino, after a visit to TESEU, you know exactly what applies, what it costs, and where it is prohibited. In Roveredo, Mesocco, Bregaglia, or Poschiavo, there is no one to tell you that – the answer is made up of zone planning, building permit, hospitality law, municipal police regulations, foreign resident registration, AVS registration, and tax return. The fact that the canton does not count how many people are affected does not make the duty to provide information smaller; instead, it shifts it to the individual person.
The good news: Each of these questions has a responsible office, and you may ask them in Italian. The less good news: You must ask them before you start, and in writing, so that the answer is documented. How strongly the municipal part of this puzzle shapes practice is exemplified by the article on how the municipality regulates the time where the canton is silent.
This article reflects the status as of late September 2026 and does not replace legal advice. The authoritative information comes from the municipal office at the place of work, the Office for Migration and Civil Law Graubünden, the SVA Graubünden, and the cantonal tax administration.