In most Swiss cantons, the first question sex workers face is hard to answer: Who is actually responsible? There is no office for sex work, no law with that word in the title, and the answer is scattered somewhere between municipal building office, migration service, and compensation fund.
Geneva is the opposite. The canton has its own prostitution law, its own police unit for it, a register, a registration form – and a clearly outlined path you must follow before you work for the first time. This path consists essentially of two appointments: an information session at a specialist organization and a personal appointment with the police. Both are free, both are mandatory, and without the second one you are not working legally.
This article walks through this path step by step – for sex workers, for salon operators, and for anyone who wants to know where the canton’s responsibility ends and the federal government’s or the municipality’s begins.
Why Geneva Regulates Differently from Most Cantons
The basis is the cantonal prostitution law (Loi sur la prostitution, LProst, Systematic Collection of Laws I 2 49), passed in December 2009 and in force since May 1, 2010. There are also implementation regulations (Règlements, RProst) that govern details – including where work is permitted on public land.
The decisive difference from many German-speaking cantons: In Geneva, regulation is almost entirely the canton’s responsibility, not the municipalities’. The responsible body is a specialized unit of the cantonal police, the BTPI (Brigade de lutte contre la traite d’êtres humains et la prostitution illicite) – the Brigade to Combat Human Trafficking and Illegal Prostitution. It emerged in 2016 from the former morality police.
This is a deliberately different structure than, for example, in the canton of Zug, where not a sex law but the zoning plan is the actual regulation, or in Valais, where the canton receives the notification but the municipality takes the decisive approval step. In Geneva you have one main address – and it’s at Boulevard Carl-Vogt.
The advantage is obvious: You don’t have to research who is responsible. The price is equally clear: You are registered by name in a police register before you start.
Personal Registration Requirement: A Two-Step Process
Anyone in the canton of Geneva offering sexual services for payment must register in advance with the BTPI. This applies regardless of whether you work in a salon, in your own apartment, through online ads, or on the street. Registration is free.
Step 1: Information Session at Aspasie
Before the police appointment, there is a mandatory information session held by the specialist organization Aspasie. Aspasie was founded in 1982 in Geneva by sex workers – including Grisélidis Réal – and allies, and is now the central contact point in the canton.
The session is free and currently takes place without prior registration Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. at Rue des Pâquis 11 in 1201 Geneva. You will receive a certificate (attestation) confirming your attendance. You must present this certificate at your BTPI appointment – Aspasie recommends going at least one day before your police appointment so the certificate is ready in time. Times and dates may change; check them directly with the organization before traveling.
In terms of content, this hour is not just about formalities, but about rights: what obligations salon operators have, what clauses in rental agreements are problematic, where to go if something goes wrong.
Step 2: Appointment with the BTPI
The actual registration takes place in person at the BTPI, Boulevard Carl-Vogt 17–19, 1205 Geneva. The counter is currently open Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 a.m.; an appointment is arranged in advance. The brigade also accepts further documents by email ([email protected]).
You should typically bring:
- a valid identity document (ID card or passport),
- a valid residence or work permit, if you are not a Swiss citizen,
- the attendance certificate from Aspasie.
Prerequisites are being of legal age and having a status that permits gainful employment in Switzerland. At registration, the brigade also informs you which cantonal agencies will receive the data collected and provides information on counseling services.
What This Registration Is – and Is Not
Registration with the BTPI is not a permit in the sense of permission that someone can grant or deny to you if you meet the requirements. It is a registration requirement: You are recorded so the activity can be monitored.
Equally important: The registration does not replace a single other step. It is not a residence permit, not a work permit, not an AHV registration, and not a tax return. It also says nothing about whether the location where you work is permitted for this purpose. If you confuse these things, you end up with a correct register entry and three open issues.
Residence and Work Permit: This Is Where Most False Information Circulates
The most delicate point is the immigration law status – and this is exactly where most half-truths circulate.
For citizens of the EU and EFTA, within the framework of freedom of movement, the registration procedure for short-term gainful employment applies: up to 90 working days per calendar year, to be registered online before starting work. You should carry the confirmation of this online registration with you. However, this procedure does not replace registration with the BTPI – both are necessary, and they are processed by different organizations.
If you want to work longer than these 90 days, you need a residence permit: depending on your situation, either a short-term residence permit L or a residence permit B, distinguished by whether you are self-employed or employed in a salon. The responsible agency is the cantonal Office for Population and Migration (OCPM), not the police. If you already have a settlement permit C or a border crossing permit G, bring it with you.
For nationals of third countries without an already existing, employment-authorizing status, the path is practically closed. It is unpleasant to read, but it is the legal situation, and offers that promise something different are a warning sign, not a insider tip.
The 90-day logic shapes entire scenes, by the way. How much it structures work when stays are short and distances are long is shown by looking at cantons where almost nobody stays long.
Salon or Escort Agency: The Qualified Registration
Anyone providing premises for sex work by third parties falls under a separate regime. According to Article 9 LProst, any natural person who operates a salon as a tenant, subtenant, usufructuary, owner, or co-owner and provides premises to third parties for prostitution must register in advance and in writing with the responsible authority – specifying the number and identity of persons working there. If the operation is behind a legal entity, it must previously designate in writing a natural person who assumes the obligations of the law. This person is considered the „personne responsable,“ the responsible person.Article 10 LProst links personal requirements to this role: Swiss citizenship or the right to engage in self-employment in Switzerland, legal capacity, and evidence of integrity and solvency based on past conduct and behavior. Anyone who was responsible for a salon or escort agency in the past ten years that was closed and subject to an operating ban is excluded.
At the appointment with the BTPI, among other things, a copy of the lease agreement — for salons, a commercial lease — or the exact location if the contract is not yet available, as well as the receipt model that is issued to the persons working in the business, will be requested. For escort agencies, a certificate from the debt enforcement and bankruptcy office is added. Registration itself is also free of charge here. The BTPI will tell you bindingly which documents are needed in each individual case — the list changes occasionally.
The ongoing obligations are set out in Article 12 LProst: The responsible person must maintain a register that is always up to date and accessible to the police, containing the identity, place of residence, type and validity of residence or work permit, arrival and departure dates of persons working in the business, as well as services provided and the amounts charged for them. Changes must be reported in accordance with Article 11.
The sanctions are serious. Article 14 LProst allows for graduated administrative measures in case of violations up to temporary closure of one to six months — combined with a ban on running another salon during this time — and in serious cases permanent closure with an operating ban. Regardless, Article 25 provides for an administrative fine of 100 to 60,000 francs.
One point that is often overlooked: purely digital structures can also fall under this regime. Virtual profiles and platforms whose purpose is to mediate between sex workers and clients are treated by the Brigade as escort agencies and must be registered accordingly. If you „just run a website,“ you can very quickly be legally considered an operator.
The fact that multiple agencies can review simultaneously without one of them officially „approving“ is not a Geneva peculiarity — only that elsewhere, as in Nidwalden, no agency has the responsibility at all, while Geneva bundles it.
Where work is permitted
Indoors: salon, escort agency, or your own apartment with advertisements. For online advertisements, it is advisable to always keep a copy of your own advertisement with you — the police can conduct inspections in apartments, salons, and on the street.
Outdoors is more restricted. The Ordinance on the Exercise of Prostitution (RProst, I 2 49.04) defines street prostitution as remaining on streets, squares, or parking areas with recognizable intent to offer sexual services, and prohibits it where it disturbs public order. Solicitation in public space is specifically prohibited near schools, places of worship, cemeteries, hospitals, parks, playgrounds, public transport stops, public toilets, and parking areas.
In practice, street work is concentrated in the Pâquis district and on Boulevard Helvétique. The perimeter has been adjusted several times over the years — usually narrowed. In 2014, the State Council banned street prostitution outside these two areas; by decision of October 5, 2017, the two ramps connecting Boulevard Helvétique with Rue Emilie-Gourd in the Les Tranchées district were additionally removed following complaints from residents. Aspasie criticized at the time not being consulted and pointed to mediation as an alternative tested in the Pâquis.
Important for practice: These perimeters are defined to the meter and can be changed by decision. Do not rely on district names from an article — not even this one. You can inquire about the currently valid perimeter from the BTPI or look it up in the current ordinance text.
What the canton does not regulate: AHV, taxes, VAT
The LProst says nothing about your social insurance and nothing about your taxes. This level is completely separate.
Anyone working as self-employed registers with an AHV compensation fund — in Geneva typically with the cantonal compensation fund (Caisse cantonale genevoise de compensation, OCAS). The fund decides based on an individual case review whether the activity qualifies as self-employed under social insurance law. This decision is not a formality: if you work in a salon with fixed attendance times, predetermined prices, and instructions, you can be classified as dependent despite issuing your own invoices — with consequences for contributions and responsibilities. Those recognized as self-employed pay contributions to AHV/IV/EO as well as family allowances and the cantonal maternity insurance, initially on account, finally settled on the basis of income determined by the cantonal tax administration.
Income from sex work is taxable income and must be declared in your tax return. The competent authority is the cantonal tax administration (AFC-GE). Whether source taxation applies depends on your residence and work permit status; with recognized self-employment, ordinary assessment is usually applied. If in doubt, clarify this directly with the AFC-GE or with Aspasie’s social counseling service, which accompanies precisely such cases. You become subject to VAT under federal law only from an annual turnover of 100,000 francs — for individuals usually not an issue, for businesses it is.
That without a cantonal special law no one assembles these threads for you is the rule in Switzerland — you have to piece together the responsibilities yourself, as the Glarus example shows. Geneva only relieves you of this work for the police part, not for the tax part.
The numbers: the salon disappears
The BTPI itself points out how difficult reliable figures are: many registered persons do not work year-round, many EU nationals are only in Geneva for a few weeks a year. Register numbers thus reflect more of a coming and going than a workforce.
One development is nonetheless clear. Police-recorded erotic massage salons: 128 in 2018, still 58 in October 2024 — less than half in six years. Some of these closures occurred for economic reasons, a smaller part following officially established violations. In one documented case, an operator simply cited exhaustion: stigmatization plus dispute with the property owner over the arcade rent.
With this, the people do not disappear, but the licensed, controllable, obligation-laden workplace does. What remains is the apartment — and the rent becomes the real power question.
2025/2026: rent moves to center stage
That is precisely where the current debate begins. The prostitution law regulates notification, registration, and control — but it hardly protects sex workers from exorbitant rents for rooms and workspaces. Aspasie and others have long criticized the fact that salon regulations do not capture the actual forms of exploitation: imposed working hours, pressure for unprotected services, confiscation of documents.
In spring 2025, it became public that authorities are actively pursuing operators with exploitative rents and preparing an amendment to the prostitution law. In parallel, civil society is banking on ownership rather than supervision: the real estate foundation Philénis, founded by Aspasie in 2022, acquired the Hôtel Barillon on Rue de Berne for around 9 million francs — financed through private donations and bank loans — and rents residential and work spaces in the Pâquis at fair prices directly to sex workers.Whether and in what form the announced legislative revision has been dealt with or passed by the Grand Council to this day cannot be conclusively determined from the available sources. Anyone planning in Geneva in 2026 should check the status of the LProst revision directly with the canton or with Aspasie before making major decisions.
Back out of the register: the „radiation“
A step that hardly anyone knows about, even though it’s the most important one when you stop: deletion. Anyone who ends their activity in the Canton of Geneva can report the cessation and request the deletion of their personal data.
The form is available on the cantonal website. It is printed out, dated, signed, and sent by registered mail to the BTPI. A copy of an ID document must be included without fail – without it, deletion is not possible and you remain registered. Processing can take up to one month. On the form, you can tick a box to indicate that for reasons of confidentiality you do not wish to receive a confirmation letter at home.
This box is more than a formality. It is an acknowledgment that mail from the police force in the mailbox represents a real risk for many people.
Key addresses
- BTPI, Brigade de lutte contre la traite d’êtres humains et la prostitution illicite, Boulevard Carl-Vogt 17–19, 1205 Geneva, [email protected] – responsible for registration, salon and agency registrations, deletion.
- Aspasie, Rue des Pâquis 11, 1201 Geneva – mandatory information event, social, legal and health counselling, multilingual, free, anonymous upon request.
- OCPM – residence and work permits.
- OCAS (cantonal compensation fund) – AHV affiliation and self-employed status.
- AFC-GE – taxes.
Conclusion
Geneva requires more formalities than most cantons and provides something that is lacking elsewhere: a defined pathway with identifiable responsibilities. Two appointments, a free register entry, clearly written operator obligations – and a procedure to disappear from the register again at the end.
The open flanks are not in the procedure itself, but alongside it: in rents that are not subject to reporting requirements, and in workplaces that disappear faster than new ones emerge. Anyone working in Geneva should therefore keep both levels in view – the formal one, which is well documented, and the economic one, which is currently being renegotiated.
This article summarizes publicly accessible information and does not replace legal advice. Perimeters, opening hours, document lists, and legal statuses change. Binding information comes from the responsible authorities – for Geneva primarily the BTPI, the OCPM, the OCAS, and the AFC-GE; for independent, free initial consultation, Aspasie.