# Prostitution Laws: prostitution law by country (dataset)

How 196 countries and territories regulate prostitution, as four linked CSV tables: the legal model
of each country, the legal status and type of penalty for selling and buying sexual services,
brothels, third-party procuring and advertising, the key statutes with links to their official
texts, regional differences, and every cited source with the date it was accessed.

The dataset is an export of the country data behind **Prostitution Laws**
(<https://prostitutionlaws.org/>), an interactive world map with a profile page per country. Each
row links to that profile, where the same facts appear with footnotes.

- **Version:** 2026-10-30 (the date every profile in this export was last reviewed)
- **License:** [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- **Maintainer:** the Prostitution Laws editorial team (<https://prostitutionlaws.org/>), see [Maintainer](#maintainer)
- **Corrections:** corrections@prostitutionlaws.org

## Files

| File | Rows | One row per |
|---|---|---|
| `countries.csv` | 196 | country or territory |
| `topics.csv` | 1,077 | country × question answered |
| `subnational.csv` | 99 | state, region or municipality whose rules differ from the national framework |
| `sources.csv` | 1,040 | source cited in a country profile (1,031 distinct URLs) |

All files are UTF-8, comma-separated, with a header row and RFC 4180 quoting. `iso2` joins the
tables. Cells that hold several values (memberships, provisions, source ids and URLs) separate
them with ` | ` (space, vertical bar, space). An empty cell means the source data has no value for
that field; nothing is filled in by inference.

## Coverage

- **Countries:** all 193 UN member states except Equatorial Guinea (not yet researched), plus Hong
  Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Kosovo, which have their own legal systems on this question. Kosovo uses
  the user-assigned code `XK`.
- **Depth:** 15 countries have **full profiles** (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, France,
  Germany, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, Sweden, Thailand, the United
  Kingdom, the United States). They answer all eleven questions and list at least three key laws.
  The other 181 are **overviews** answering the five core questions: selling, buying, brothels,
  procuring and advertising.
- **Legal models in this version:** abolitionism 99, prohibition 69, neo-abolitionism (Nordic
  model) 12, regulation 12, decriminalisation 4.
- **Regional detail:** 23 countries have subnational entries, including all 50 US states and the
  District of Columbia, and the Australian states and territories.
- **Confidence:** of the 1,077 answers, 448 are marked `high`, 464 `medium` and 165 `low`. Medium
  and low answers carry a `note` saying what could not be confirmed (for example, an official
  portal that could not be opened, so a reproduction of the statute was used).
- **Not in this export:** the EU and international instruments (Digital Services Act,
  Anti-Trafficking Directive, Council of Europe and ECtHR material), pending bills, timelines and
  official statistics. They are on the website and in its JSON download
  (<https://prostitutionlaws.org/data/>).
- **Known gaps in the source data:** `max_penalty` is filled for selling in 129 countries and for
  buying in 59, and is empty elsewhere (including where no penalty applies). The `memberships`
  column records EEA membership for only some EU member states; treat it as incomplete and derive
  EEA membership from EU + EFTA (minus Switzerland) if you need it.

## Methodology

The full methodology is at <https://prostitutionlaws.org/methodology/>. In short:

- **Five legal models**, from the least to the most criminalised:
  `decriminalisation` (no prostitution-specific criminal law), `regulation` (selling and running
  venues legal under licensing or registration), `abolitionism` (selling and buying legal,
  brothels, procuring and organising criminal), `neo-abolitionism` (buying is an offence, selling
  is not: the "Nordic" or "Equality" model) and `prohibition` (selling is an offence, criminal or
  administrative, whether or not buying is). The model follows what the law penalises, not what it
  declares: Japan, where selling and buying are declared prohibited but neither is punished, counts
  as abolitionism.
- **Statuses** for each question: `legal`, `regulated` (lawful only with a licence, registration
  or permit), `restricted` (lawful in principle but significantly limited, or lawful for some and
  an offence for others), `illegal` (a criminal or administrative offence) and `varies` (depends on
  the region or municipality).
- **Scope of an answer:** an adult, consensual situation with no trafficking or coercion. Offences
  involving minors, coercion or trafficking are covered by separate laws and are not what the
  status shows.
- **Sources:** what a statute says is cited to the official consolidated text on the national
  legislation portal, at section level where possible. Court rulings are cited to the court's own
  database, then government, parliamentary and statistical sources. Academic, NGO and news sources
  give context, enforcement practice and pending legislation, never the only source for what a
  statute says. Every source has the date it was opened, and every answer the date it was checked.
- **Limits:** a statute is not its enforcement; local rules are summarised, not listed
  exhaustively; this describes the law and is not legal advice.

## Field dictionary

### countries.csv

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| `iso2` | ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (`XK` for Kosovo) |
| `name` | English short name |
| `native_name` | Name in the main official language, where recorded |
| `region` | Region used by the website's continent maps (UN M49, adapted: the Caucasus and Turkey in Europe, North Africa with the Middle East) |
| `memberships` | Recorded memberships among `EU`, `EEA`, `EFTA`, `CoE` (Council of Europe), `Schengen`; see the EEA caveat under Coverage |
| `depth` | `profile` (all eleven questions) or `overview` (five core questions) |
| `last_reviewed` | Date the country entry was last reviewed (YYYY-MM-DD) |
| `model` | Legal model key: `decriminalisation`, `regulation`, `abolitionism`, `neo-abolitionism`, `prohibition` |
| `model_label` | Human-readable label of the model |
| `model_note` | Why the country is placed in this model, including borderline aspects |
| `<topic>_status` | Status of each question: `legal`, `regulated`, `restricted`, `illegal`, `varies`; empty if the question is not answered (overviews). Topics: `selling`, `buying`, `brothels`, `shared_premises`, `procuring`, `advertising`, `platforms`, `street`, `registration`, `tax`, `migrants` |
| `<topic>_penalty` | Type of sanction: `criminal`, `administrative` or `none`; empty if not recorded |
| `selling_max_penalty` | Short label of the maximum penalty the law sets for the person selling, in an adult, consensual case (for example a fine or prison term). Fines in currencies covered by the ECB reference rates are converted to euros at the rate of 30 October 2026 and marked `≈`; others are in the local currency |
| `buying_max_penalty` | The same for the person buying |
| `key_laws` | English titles of the key laws, ` \| `-separated |
| `key_law_urls` | URLs of the official texts of `key_laws`, in the same order |
| `subnational_entries` | Number of rows for this country in `subnational.csv` |
| `pending_items` | Number of pending bills, reviews or proposals listed on the profile (details on the website) |
| `source_count` | Number of rows for this country in `sources.csv` |
| `summary` | Plain-English summary of the national framework |
| `profile_url` | Country profile on prostitutionlaws.org |

### topics.csv

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| `iso2`, `country` | Country code and name |
| `topic` | Question key (same names as the `<topic>_` prefixes above) |
| `topic_label` | The question in words, for example "Third parties profiting (procuring / pimping)" |
| `core` | `yes` for the five questions every country answers, `no` for the six answered in full profiles only (`platforms` and `street` are also answered by a few overviews) |
| `status`, `status_label` | Status key and its label |
| `penalty` | `criminal`, `administrative` or `none`; empty if not recorded |
| `max_penalty` | Maximum-penalty label as in `countries.csv` (selling and buying only) |
| `summary` | The answer in up to 500 characters |
| `provisions` | Statutory provisions relied on, for example `§ 32 ProstSchG` |
| `confidence` | `high`, `medium` or `low` |
| `verified` | Date the answer was last checked against its sources |
| `note` | What is uncertain or contested, where applicable |
| `source_ids` | Ids of the supporting sources (join to `sources.csv` on `iso2` + `source_id`) |
| `source_urls` | URLs of those sources, in the same order |
| `profile_url` | Country profile on prostitutionlaws.org |

### subnational.csv

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| `iso2`, `country` | Country code and name |
| `subdivision` | State, territory, region or municipality, or a group of them |
| `model` | Legal model of that subdivision where it differs and is classifiable; often empty |
| `note` | What differs and under which law |
| `source_ids`, `source_urls` | Supporting sources, as in `topics.csv` |

### sources.csv

| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| `iso2`, `country` | Country whose profile cites the source |
| `source_id` | Id unique within the country |
| `kind` | `legislation`, `case-law`, `government`, `parliament`, `statistics`, `intergovernmental`, `academic`, `ngo` or `news` |
| `title` | Official title in the original language |
| `title_en` | English gloss when the title is not in English |
| `publisher` | Publisher or portal |
| `published` | Publication or adoption date where known (YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD) |
| `language` | Language code of the source |
| `url` | Where the source was read |
| `accessed` | Date the URL was opened |
| `citation` | Convenience string: publisher, title (with the English gloss), publication date |

## How to cite

Please credit **"Source: Prostitution Laws (prostitutionlaws.org)"** with a link to the page or
record you used. For academic work:

> Prostitution Laws editorial team (2026). *Prostitution Laws: prostitution law by country*
> (dataset, version 2026-10-30). https://prostitutionlaws.org/

The archived version has a DOI; please cite it: <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23847615>.

## License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0):
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>. You may share and adapt the data for any purpose,
including commercially, as long as you give credit as above and indicate if changes were made.
The cited legislation and other sources keep their own terms; this dataset contains citations and
links to them, not copies.

## Maintainer

Prostitution Laws and this dataset are researched and maintained by the Prostitution Laws
editorial team. The project takes no position for or against any legal model.
Corrections, with the page, the statement and ideally the source, go to
corrections@prostitutionlaws.org.