Three people, a four-room apartment, shared rent, shared cleaning costs, each working independently. From the outside, it looks like any other shared apartment. Legally, it isn’t — and not just when something goes wrong, but from the moment the lease is signed.
The question most frequently asked at advisory centers is therefore not „Am I allowed to work together with others?“. It is: „When do I become classified as an operator — and when does the public prosecutor’s office become interested in me?“ This text answers both, separated by the three legal areas that apply simultaneously here: criminal law (Art. 195 SCC), cantonal trade law, and rental law. Added to this is social insurance (AHV), a fourth area that in practice issues the most expensive bills.
The actual offense in question
Art. 195 SCC is titled „Promotion of prostitution“ and comprises four variants: trafficking minors or promoting their prostitution for profit (lit. a), trafficking under exploitation of dependency or for financial gain (lit. b), impairing freedom of action through surveillance or by determining location, time, extent, or other circumstances (lit. c), and detaining someone in prostitution (lit. d). The sentence can be up to ten years imprisonment.
For a collective, realistically only lit. c is relevant — and this variant is regularly misunderstood. It does not require violence, threats, or even a dependency relationship in the strict sense. It is sufficient that someone determines the circumstances of another person’s activity. According to cantonal case law, the fact that the affected person works voluntarily explicitly does not exclude the offense.
The good news comes from the same case law. The Solothurn Court of Appeal determined in 2020 that merely operating a business does not meet the offense requirement; at least conditional intent regarding the impairment is needed (STBER.2019.43). The Federal Court acquitted the manager of a sauna club even though there was a binding price list and a 40 percent profit share — what was decisive was that the women were otherwise not restricted in their freedom of movement. The older BGE 125 IV 269 also requires for „surveillance“ a certain pressure that restricts free decision-making about whether and how to work.
The bad news is the reverse test. In BGE 129 IV 81, the Federal Court confirmed a conviction because women had to be present seventeen hours daily, had to turn over all earnings, and prices and types of services were prescribed. The court explicitly compared the resulting coercive situation to usury under Art. 157 SCC. The Solothurn Court of Appeal affirmed the offense in 2021 because the accused set prices and durations that were virtually identical across all her salons (STBER.2020.53).
The line between them is discernible: what is criminal is not collaboration, but external control. A collective in which everyone has the same rights and each makes her own decisions is far from lit. c. A collective in which one person sets the rules and the others must comply moves toward it — regardless of how friendly the intention was.
The first line is not drawn by criminal law, but by the canton
Long before Art. 195 SCC becomes relevant, cantonal or municipal trade law kicks in. And there the threshold is surprisingly low — usually precisely at the third person.
In the Canton of Bern, a micro-business is defined as someone who operates the activity alone or with at most one other person in a maximum of two premises. Such a micro-business does not need an operating permit but must register with the local municipality using the micro-business notification form before commencing operations. Anything beyond that requires a permit from the district administrator’s office. The legal bases are the Law on the Prostitution Business of 7 June 2012 (PGG, BSG 935.90) and its associated ordinance (PGV, BSG 935.901). The cantonal contact points are the migration authority and the Red Light Office of the cantonal police.
In the City of Zurich, the Prostitution Business Ordinance (PGVO, AS 551.140) regulates the permit requirement. Tiny salons are exempt from this; the Building and Zoning Ordinance refers to Art. 11 para. 2 PGVO for this. The exemption originally applied to one room and was later expanded to two rooms. Important and often overlooked: Even a permit-free tiny salon requires a building permit for non-conforming use. Supervision is conducted by the Milieu and Sex Crimes unit of the city police.
In Geneva, the threshold is clearest — and lowest. Under the LProst, premises in which two or more people offer sexual services are considered a salon. The Geneva Administrative Court explicitly confirmed in 2023 that even a small structure with two or three independently working people remains a salon within the meaning of Art. 1 LProst (ATA/1015/2023). The responsible person must notify the business in advance in writing, specify the number and identity of persons working there, and maintain a register with identity, residence, and validity of residence or work permits. Parliamentary reports already noted in 2017 that this prohibited numerous apartments of „independent craftspeople in shared housing.“
In the Canton of Lucerne, there has been a permit requirement under the Trade Police Law since 2020; businesses with at most two employees are exempt. For a permit procedure, cost-covering fees of between 500 and 1,500 francs were anticipated. In Ticino, the LProst goes even further and generally ties apartment use to a single person. In Valais, the Prostitution Ordinance explicitly prohibits above-market rents, and in Neuchâtel, the implementing ordinance ties salon permits to requirements in the lease itself.
The practical consequence: Anyone planning a collective must first read the municipal and cantonal rules, not the SCC. And the number three is in much of Switzerland the point at which a shared apartment becomes a permit-requiring business.
Who signs the lease decides almost everything
There are two structures, and they are legally completely different.
Option A — all as co-tenants. Everyone is equally in the contract, everyone is jointly and severally liable to the landlord, no one has a landlord position toward the others. This is by far the cleanest form: there is no hierarchy that could be interpreted as an operator position. The disadvantage is real — joint and several liability means that if someone defaults, the others must cover the full rent — but it is an economic, not a criminal risk. The Bern authorities describe exactly this constellation: if three people jointly rent an apartment, the landlord makes it available to all three equally.
Option B — one rents, the others sublet. This is where problems begin. Subletting requires the landlord’s consent under Art. 262 OR; consent may be refused only in narrow cases, such as abusive conditions or substantial disadvantages. Under Art. 262 para. 3 OR, the main tenant is liable for ensuring the subtenant does not use the property differently than permitted. Most importantly: whoever sublets is economically superior to the others. If she sets the price, determines occupancy, retains a markup — then she has exactly the characteristics courts examine when asking about operator status.
Then there is the purpose stated in the lease. Zurich rental court decisions show the direction: the conversion of pure residential use into an erotic establishment was assessed under Art. 266g, 257f, and 262 OR (ZMP 2017 No. 12), and commercial subletting without consent is considered a breach of contract (ZMP 2024 No. 5). The grounds for termination in these cases is never „sex work“ but always improper use — which means the decisive line is in the lease, not in the law.
The third rental law point concerns the other side. Excessive rents charged to sex workers are no minor matter. On 7 February 2025, the Federal Court confirmed a conviction for commercial usury under Art. 157 SCC: a landlord had concluded over forty individual room contracts with people in need over roughly six years, at rents at least 25 percent above market rates (6B_799/2023). In a Zurich case, prices were sometimes over 150 percent above local market levels. Whoever holds the main lease in a collective should therefore be able to document the cost-sharing formula.
Money flows are the most dangerous point
More is decided here than in the lease — and here the highest bills are generated.
On 27 August 2026, the Federal Court confirmed that the manager of a Vaud erotic salon had to account for social insurance contributions for the hostesses working there (9C_367/2026). The back payment amounted to 254,313 francs. Reference to alleged cantonal practice and advice from the accountant did not help; in case of unclear circumstances, he should have inquired with the compensation office. What was decisive for the classification as self-employed were three characteristics: the company set the rates, collected payments, and provided the infrastructure.
This fits the older line. In 9C_246/2011, the Federal Court classified work in two brothels as dependent employment because women were provided a „package.“ A 2018 St. Gall decision rejected specific entrepreneurial risk because only a daily entrance fee was charged.
But there is also an exonerating side, and it is central for collectives. The Zurich Cantonal Social Insurance Court addressed in 2021 an operator of a salon permit who billed the other sex workers for the responsibility she bore. The court held that a person who presents herself outwardly in her own name does not thereby become an employer (AB.2020.00087). So it comes down to overall assessment, not a single factor.
From this, concrete rules can be derived:
- No one collects money centrally. Each takes her money herself. A common till from which money is distributed at the end of the day is the strongest single indicator of an employment relationship.
- Share fixed costs, not revenue. A flat share of rent, electricity, internet, and cleaning is unsuspicious. A percentage share of the revenue of others is the classic construction error — even though BGE 126 IV 76 shows it is not criminally sufficient by itself, it is a hallmark of employer status under social insurance law.
- The cost-sharing formula must be traceable. Share of square meters, share of persons, documented and equal for all.
- Each accounts herself with the compensation office and keeps her own books. Separate accounts, separate records, no shared cash management.
House rules yes — external control no
A collective without agreements does not function. The question is which agreements are harmless and which border on lit. c. The difference lies not in content but in origin and enforcement.
Unproblematic are rules that everyone agreed to together, that are changeable at any time, that apply equally to all, and for whose violation there is no enforcement apparatus: rest times, cleaning schedule, use of common areas, room allocation by calendar. A written collective agreement is actually more protective than risky — it documents equality.
It becomes problematic with four things:1. Price Setting. Each sets their own prices. Uniform rates were the key element in the Solothurn case.
2. Presence Requirements. An occupancy plan that allocates rooms is something different from a duty to be present. BGE 129 IV 81 involved, among other things, seventeen hours of presence time.
3. Central Customer Reception. A shared phone number where someone takes calls and distributes them shifts the decision over „who, when, with whom.“ In a Bern case, a man was convicted by penalty order because he let three sex workers use his apartment and referred customers to them.
4. Surveillance. Cameras in hallways, monitoring of appointments, „watchers“ at the door. Security technology is different from this: An emergency button that each person activates themselves doesn’t surveil anyone. The Geneva foundation Philénis, founded from the network of the counseling center Aspasie, acquired two buildings for exactly this purpose, where around forty sex workers operate at affordable rates; the property in the Pâquis district has emergency buttons. The model shows that protective infrastructure and self-determination don’t exclude each other.
Fines within the collective are, by the way, consistently a bad idea. Whoever imposes sanctions has by definition a superior position.
Residence Status Catches Most People
The most common criminal liability in connection with jointly used apartments is not Art. 195 SCC, but Art. 116 FAA. Whoever facilitates the illegal residence of a foreign person is punished with imprisonment of up to one year or a fine; if the person acts with intent to enrich themselves, the range increases to up to five years. Renting accommodation to a person without residence rights falls under this provision according to Zurich case law. Intent is required — not every favor is covered, and the circumstances of the individual case matter.
In the Bern case already mentioned, the public prosecutor’s office established liability in two ways: lack of authorization to operate and lack of work permits for some of the women. Whoever holds the main lease bears the greatest risk here.
In practice, this means: Before moving in, clarify whether the person has valid residence and work status — for EU/EFTA nationals, typically through the registration procedure for self-employed activity with a maximum of 90 days per calendar year, for third-country nationals through the corresponding permit. In Geneva, keeping a register for salons is mandatory anyway; in cantons without this requirement, it is sufficient to have checked the status once, without creating a collection of documents that itself looks like operating a business.
What Is Actually Checked During an Inspection
Inspections are usually carried out by multiple agencies simultaneously or in succession: Red-light district or milieu specialists of the cantonal police, trade police, and as part of combating undeclared work, also the cantonal enforcement authorities under BGSA. Added to this are the tax administration and compensation fund, usually at different times.
Whoever can provide the following documents is generally in the clear:
- Rental agreement with all names or documented consent to subletting
- Registration form or permit from the location municipality, depending on the canton
- For each person individually: Proof of registration with AHV as self-employed
- Separate records of income, per person
- A comprehensible, written cost-sharing agreement
- No joint price lists, no joint account, no central appointment book
Five Construction Defects That Occur Repeatedly
- One person pays the entire rent and charges the others more than their actual share of costs.
- Billing is done proportionally from revenue instead of a fixed amount for fixed costs.
- Joint advertising with a central phone number operated by one person.
- An occupancy plan that has turned into a presence requirement — including fines for non-appearance.
- Cameras or a person at the door who records who comes when.
Each individual point is not yet a criminal offense in itself. Three of them together produce the picture that courts have described in relevant decisions.
What’s in Motion in 2026
The direction is inconsistent. On one hand, the number of apartment-based businesses is growing; the Lucerne police estimated around 110 brothels, contact bars and massage salons in the canton with around 600 sex workers and admitted that they cannot inspect over 80 percent of the businesses — while simultaneously shifting from cantons with stricter regulations. On the other hand, models are emerging that address exactly the problem of inflated rents: In Geneva, the responsible state councilor announced a legislative change for fair conditions, the counseling center Aspasie has submitted its own proposals for changes to the LProst, and in Basel-Stadt, the question of whether the canton should acquire properties with sex work businesses is being reviewed politically.
At the same time, the concept of pimping itself is up for debate. In France, there is a motion by parliamentarians to classify paid online sex as pimping — an approach that would go far beyond the classic constellation. For Swiss collectives, this is currently foreign law, but it shows that the boundary is politically fluid. Anyone today sharing an apartment and operating digital offerings alongside it should keep this development in mind; the debate on the expanded concept of pimping concerns precisely the interface between shared infrastructure and online marketing.
Conclusion
A collective is possible in Switzerland without coming close to Art. 195 SCC — but only if the structure is right. The three core rules can be summarized in one sentence: equal rights in the lease, fixed costs instead of revenue sharing, no decision-making over others’ work.
Everything else is administrative law and varies greatly: In Bern, two people and two rooms only need a registration form, in Geneva two people already constitute a permit-required salon, in Zurich even the permit-free micro-salon requires a building permit. The first call should therefore be to the location municipality, not a lawyer — and the second to the compensation fund, before the first billing runs. The Vaud canton’s subsequent payment of 254,313 francs is an expensive argument for asking this question first.
The regional counseling centers, which are united under the umbrella organization ProKoRe, offer free advice without disclosure to authorities — also on draft contracts and cost-sharing agreements. This is the most cost-effective way to have a structure reviewed before it is implemented.
This article reflects the status as of November 2026 and does not replace legal advice. Cantonal and municipal regulations change continuously; binding information is provided by the responsible municipality, the government prefect’s office or the trade police, and the compensation fund.