At Rossboden in Chur, the canton’s only openly visible street sex work area, the city council stated in its situation analysis report that most recently „none to two“ people offered their services there. Just over a decade earlier, the same authorities reported an average of around 15 people waiting in the same area. The work hasn’t disappeared because of this. A question submitted by three cantonal councillors in 2025 demanding information from the government pointed to hundreds of active ads from Graubünden on relevant platforms.
Between these two figures lies no decline, but a shift: from the street to the apartment, to the hotel room, to the calendar of a tour. And between them lies an administration that — according to its own account — does not collect systematic and complete data on sex work in the canton.
Whoever works here will sooner or later ask the same question: Who is actually responsible? The answer is uncomfortable, but it can be learned. Graubünden has no sex work law of its own — and yet a whole series of reporting requirements, permits, and areas of responsibility that affect you. They just don’t lie where you’d look for them.
No cantonal law doesn’t mean: no rules
Graubünden has no cantonal prostitution legislation. There is no register, no permit called „sex work,“ no cantonal reporting office where you register as a sex worker. This clearly distinguishes the canton from neighbors like Ticino, where its own legislation exists with a personal registration number — to see what it looks like when a canton takes the opposite approach, the Ticino approach with reporting requirement and TESEU number shows it.
The absence of special legislation is often misread. It does not mean that nothing applies. It means that general rules take effect — and there are plenty of them:
- Federal criminal law. Sex work itself is legal. Human trafficking remains punishable, exploiting a state of coercion, any form of coercion, determining the location, time, scope, or other circumstances of the activity against the will of the person concerned, as well as sexual acts with minors for payment. Whoever violates cantonal or municipal provisions on prostitution is also liable to prosecution under Art. 199 StGB — this article exists solely on the basis of what the canton and municipality prescribe.
- Foreigners law. The actual reporting requirement lies here, which causes the most trouble in everyday life.
- Social security and tax law. The only „registration“ that practically every self-employed person has to deal with lies here.
- Building, zoning and gastronomy law of the municipalities. Here it is decided where work can be carried out at all.
So the canton is not inactive. It simply does not regulate the activity itself, but its framework conditions — distributed across offices that have no joint responsibility for the subject among themselves.
The reporting requirements that exist nonetheless
Stay: the registration procedure at the Migration Office
For EU/EFTA nationals, the registration procedure applies within the framework of freedom of movement: no residence permit is required for up to 90 days per calendar year, but the activity must be reported. Registration today takes place online via EasyGov. In the case of employment, the employer registers at the latest on the day before taking office; for self-employed service provision from the EU/EFTA area, the procedure provides for notification eight days before commencing the activity.
Which variant applies to you is not decided by the industry, but by the concrete situation — and this question is regularly answered incorrectly in the erotic industry. In Graubünden, the responsible bodies are the Office for Migration and Civil Law (residence) and the KIGA (labor market side of the registration procedure). Clarify the matter before arrival, not afterward.
Three points that come up repeatedly in conversations:
- The 90 days are an annual quota, not a stay window. They are distributed over the calendar year, even if you work in several cantons. What this means for the seasonal logic of a tourism canton is particularly felt in Graubünden — there is a separate examination of the relationship between the ninety-day rule and the winter season.
- The dancer status no longer exists. The short-term residence permit for cabaret dancers was abolished nationwide as of January 1, 2016. If someone promises you a „dancer permit“ in 2026, they’re selling something that doesn’t exist.
- For third-country nationals, general foreigners law rules apply with quotas and labor market testing — a short-term engagement in the registration procedure is not provided for here.
Social insurance and taxes: the only number you really get
Whoever works self-employed registers with the compensation office — in Graubünden with SVA Graubünden. Recognition as self-employed is not a formality but an examination: do you bear the business risk, do you determine prices, times and clientele, do you work for multiple clients? In addition, there is income tax, possibly withholding tax and — above the turnover threshold — VAT.
This is the paradox of this canton: there is no permit for the activity, but certainly a contribution number for the income. How this part runs in detail, which contribution rates apply in 2026, and why the status question regularly becomes a point of contention in salons is described in detail in the article on AVS and tax administration in Graubünden.
Where permits are actually issued in Graubünden
The building permit decides the location
The most important permit in the Grisons erotic industry is not called a „salon permit“ but a building permit. Whoever uses an apartment, retail space, or hotel room permanently for a trade that is not provided for in the zone carries out a permit-requiring change of use under the cantonal spatial planning law. The municipalities are responsible. The procedure is public — with publication and possibility of objection. Why exactly this step is decisive for a project in practice is shown in the examination of the publication period in the official gazette.
Important: zoning regulations, building law and fees are municipal. Graubünden has around 100 municipalities in eleven regions. What is permitted in Chur can be assessed differently in Davos, Domat/Ems or St. Moritz — not because different laws apply, but because each municipality has its own land-use planning. The only authoritative source is the information from the building administration of the municipality concerned.
Gastronomy: the serving of alcohol is permitted
If alcohol is served in a business or it is run on a commercial basis, the Gastronomy Act for the canton of Graubünden (BR 945.100) applies. The permit is business-related, is issued to a responsible person, and can be linked to conditions regarding youth protection and public order. What is permitted is the gastronomic operation — not the sex work within it. The mechanism is the same as in other cantons without special legislation; the parallel is evident from the fact that in canton Uri too, the serving of alcohol is permitted and not the activity.
Chur: the only municipality with an explicit rule
Chur is the only Grisons municipality with an explicit provision on street prostitution. Art. 26 of the city’s police law (RB 411) restricts it to the hours of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and permits the city council further local and temporal restrictions. The time window has been in effect since a city council resolution in June 2013; the total revision of the police law was approved in the popular vote on November 29, 2020 with 82.4 percent. A total ban, as requested by a motion in 2014, failed — it would be barely compatible with economic freedom. The details of this municipal logic are worked out in the analysis of the Chur time regulation.
For all other municipalities: as a rule, there is no specific provision on sex work. This does not mean that everything is permitted — it means that general police, noise, building, and rest-time provisions apply and the municipal administration decides in individual cases.
The contact point that doesn’t exist
This is exactly where the parliamentary question came in, which brought the subject back to the cantonal agenda for the first time in years in 2025. It was submitted in the June session on June 13, 2025; the government answered it on August 12, 2025, and the matter was dealt with in the October session 2025. The person who asked the question said she was not satisfied with the answer.
Among other things, she asked: Does the canton collect data on the number of sex workers? Does the police keep statistics on operations related to prostitution? And does the canton plan a specialized contact point for sex workers? The balance from publicly accessible documents is sobering: no systematic and complete data collection, no specialized central contact point for legal, health or security questions. Support is instead provided by two specialist offices that were not created for sex work but do support it: Aids-Hilfe Graubünden and adebar.
There is also a second gap. Since the first National Action Plan against Human Trafficking, the federal government has recommended cantons so-called round tables, at which the migration office, police, public prosecutor’s office and victim assistance regulate cooperation in case of suspicion. In the majority of cantons such a cooperation mechanism exists; national overviews mention around 18. According to SRF research, Graubünden was among the cantons that had not established one. Whether anything has changed since then cannot be definitively proven based on public sources — the 2025 inquiry was aimed at exactly this gap. If you need certainty, ask the responsible department.
Whom you call in practice
Because there is no central office, a short list of your own is worthwhile. These contact points are actually reachable for Graubünden:
- Aids-Hilfe Graubünden, Lürlibadstrasse 15, 7000 Chur: cantonal specialist center for prevention and counseling on HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted infections, with outreach work for sex workers. In Chur, mediators are on-site one to two times per month according to the city council report – with prevention materials and, if needed, assistance with legal, professional or family matters.
- adebar, Specialist center for sexual health and family planning Graubünden: contraception, pregnancy, sexual health, counseling regardless of residence status.
- Opferhilfe Graubünden, Klostergasse 5, 7000 Chur: free, confidential, anonymous upon request – for people who have experienced physical, psychological or sexual violence. Since May 1, 2026, victim support is available nationwide around the clock at the number 142. For the German-speaking part of Graubünden, there is a joint solution with St. Gallen, both Appenzell cantons and Glarus: the cantonal counseling center handles daytime calls, and the St. Gallen Women’s Shelter Foundation handles after-hours calls for all five cantons.
- Women’s Shelter Graubünden: shelter and counseling for domestic violence, emergency hotline available 24/7.
- Authorities: Office for Migration and Civil Law (residence, registration procedure), KIGA (registration procedure, flanking measures), SVA Graubünden (AHV), Tax Administration Graubünden, municipal administration at your place of work (building, zoning, hospitality, municipal regulations).
It’s worth understanding the pattern behind this: In Graubünden, the health and protection infrastructure is effectively run by non-governmental organizations and general victim support, not by a sector-specific agency. This has advantages – no one keeps a list about you – and one clear disadvantage: there’s no authority that sorts out responsibilities for you.
What this means for your planning
Because no authority confirms your activity, you must be able to prove it yourself. In practice, this means:
- Document your status. AHV contribution number and decision from the compensation office, tax documents, confirmation of registration in the registration procedure, rental contract for the spaces you use. This is the file that counts in an inspection.
- Clarify the location before renting. The question „can work happen here“ is answered by the building department of the municipality, not by the landlord – and the answer can vary from municipality to municipality.
- Calculate the 90 days across the whole year. Those who rotate between cantons use the same quota.
- Clarify the division of roles in the operation. Whoever sets working hours, prices and clientele risks the compensation office assuming dependent employment – with back payments for the business.
- Save 142 and the number of the specialist center in your phone. Not just when something has happened.
Conclusion
Graubünden does not regulate sex work through a law with its name, but through four doors that all hang elsewhere: foreign law, social insurance and tax law, municipal building and zoning law, and – in Chur – the municipal police law. What is missing is the fifth door: an authority that would be responsible for protection, health and rights. The debate about this was held in the Grand Council in 2025 and concluded without result; in the new legislative term it can be taken up again.
Until then: The rules are findable, but you have to piece them together yourself. Only information from the responsible cantonal offices and the municipality at your place of work are binding – this text does not replace them, it shows you the order in which you should ask.