Countries Where Brothels Are Legal (2026 Guide)

Brothels are legal and regulated in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, New Zealand and Belgium, in five of Australia's eight states and territories, and in ten rural Nevada counties. In many more countries selling sex is legal while running a brothel is a crime, and that gap is where most lists of countries where brothels are legal go wrong.

"Prostitution is legal" and "brothels are legal" are two separate questions, and this guide keeps them apart. If you want to know where are brothels legal in practice, the table below is the short answer. The sections after it cover the rules, what changed in 2026, and the venues people rate highest on SexAdvisor. If a claim you've seen sounds too tidy, our piece on brothel myths probably covers it.

Last verified: October 2026. Laws here are moving, so read the "what changed in 2026" section before you rely on a row.

Licensed or regulated

Decriminalised

Tolerated or grey zone

Selling legal, brothels illegal

Buying sex criminalised

The table above follows four buckets.

A public body issues permits to venues and sets conditions: health checks, minimum ages, where a venue may sit. Germany, the Netherlands and Nevada work this way.

The criminal ban is gone and a brothel is treated like any other business, under planning and workplace law. New Zealand is the best-known case, and even there an operator needs a certificate.

The law says no, and the authorities look the other way or fence a district off. Tolerated is a mood, not a right, and moods change.

A person can sell sex alone, or in some places from her own home. Anyone who rents her a room, books her clients or takes a cut commits an offence. Most roundups of countries with legal prostitution rank places by whether selling is allowed, which says little about brothels.

The test in this guide: can a third party lawfully run a venue where sex is sold?

Germany has the most developed system in Europe. The Prostitution Protection Act (ProstSchG), in force since 1 July 2017, requires an operator permit under §12, tied to specific rooms. Workers register and carry a certificate that lasts two years, or one year under 21. Condoms are mandatory, and some cities add no-go zones called Sperrbezirke. Destatis counted 32,300 registered workers at the end of 2024, far below the "200,000" NGO estimate you'll see online. Our comparison of brothel laws across Europe sets these rules beside Germany's neighbours.

The Netherlands repealed its brothel ban on 1 October 2000, and since then each municipality decides. Councils issue exploitation permits, usually after an integrity screening known as Bibob, and some towns allow none. The national minimum age is 18, but most municipalities set 21.

Don't assume a national licensing law has landed: the Wet regulering sekswerk was filed in January 2021 and never came to a vote.

Austria has no federal brothel law. Each of the nine Länder writes its own, so the answer changes at a provincial border. Vienna uses permits, a registration card and health checks, and minimum ages differ by Land, so distrust any page that gives one Austrian age.

Then there is Vorarlberg. Its 1976 law permits approved brothels, but no municipality has ever approved one, which makes legal prostitution there a ban in all but name. The Land minister said in January 2026 that no change is planned.

Federal law treats sex work as legal self-employment and punishes only exploitation (Criminal Code art. 195), so cantons and cities decide whether a brothel can open. Zurich requires a building permit plus a city police salon permit, and runs a drive-in site at Depotweg that opened in August 2013.

Law 2734/1999 licenses premises. The mayor or community president grants the licence after an opinion from a committee chaired by the public prosecutor. Workers must be 18 or older, hold a prefecture certificate and a health booklet, and have a medical exam every 15 days.

The statute licenses the worker and her premises. Whether a third-party madam can lawfully run the house isn't clear from the text, so "licensed houses" is safer than "operator-run brothels".

Belgium moved in two steps. A law of 21 March 2022 (in force 1 June 2022) removed the criminal ban on consensual adult sex work. A second law of 3 May 2024, in force since 1 December 2024, created an employment contract for sex workers. An employer must be a legal entity with clean-record directors and hold accreditation before starting.

Don't picture a brothel on every corner. The first accredited employer, a sex club near Gembloux, received agrément number 1 in July 2025, and by June 2026 the Employment Ministry counted about 12 accredited employers from 22 applications. The official evaluation starts in December 2026.

New Zealand's Prostitution Reform Act 2003 is the model other countries cite. Anyone who owns, controls or runs a brothel needs an operator certificate from the Ministry of Justice. The operator must be over 18 and a New Zealand or Australian citizen or permanent resident, and temporary-visa holders can't run a sex business. Small owner-operated brothels, with no more than four workers who each control their own earnings, usually don't need a certificate. That certificate layer is why New Zealand sits between licensed and decriminalised.

Australia has no national rule, and the table above shows the eight-way split. New South Wales has been decriminalised since 1995, Victoria completed its final stage on 1 December 2023, and the Northern Territory followed with its Sex Industry Act 2019. Queensland is the one people get wrong, because it used to be licensed. Its Prostitution Licensing Authority was abolished on 2 August 2024, and the Queensland government now treats the industry as decriminalised. The ACT sits at the other end: only five businesses were registered in late 2025.

Brothels are legal in the US only in Nevada, and not the Nevada you probably picture. State law (NRS 244.345) lets county license boards license brothels outside incorporated cities, but it bars any county with 700,000 or more people. That is Clark County, home of Las Vegas, so Las Vegas has no legal brothels. Neither does Reno: Washoe County bans them by ordinance.

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