Prostitution laws in the United Kingdom

For ss.51A-53A of the 2003 Act, "prostitute" means a person who, on at least one occasion and whether or not compelled to do so, offers or provides sexual services to another person in return for payment or a promise of payment to them or a third person (s.54(2) SOA 2003, as substituted from 3 May 2015). There is no offence of selling as such. CPS legal guidance (revised 25 April 2024) says that those who sell sex should not be routinely prosecuted as offenders and gives priority to diversion and support.

The seller-side offence that remains is s.1 Street Offences Act 1959 (persistent loitering or soliciting, see street). A sole worker working from their own premises does not keep a brothel; two or more working together may (see sharedPremises).

Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, inserted by s.14 Policing and Crime Act 2009 and in force since 1 April 2010, applies where a third person (C) has engaged in exploitative conduct likely to induce the seller to provide the services and did so for gain. Subsection (2)(b) makes it irrelevant whether the buyer is, or ought to be, aware of that conduct, and it is irrelevant where in the world the services are to be provided. The penalty is a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (summary only). Level 3 on the standard scale is £1,000 (s. 122 Sentencing Act 2020).

Section 51A (also from 1 April 2010) replaced the earlier kerb-crawling offences; CPS guidance notes that persistence and nuisance need not be proved. Paying for the sexual services of a child is a separate, serious offence (s.47).

Amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill that would have made paying for sex an offence (Lords 311 at committee and 304 at report, Baroness Goudie, "Paying for sex acts") were not moved, nor were those creating a general offence of facilitating prostitution (Commons NC1; Lords 310, 303, 306A). Northern Ireland criminalises buying (see subnational).

There is no statutory definition of a brothel; the case law relied on by the CPS (Stevens v Christy) treats premises as a brothel where two or more people use them at the same time for prostitution. Offences:

• s.33 SOA 1956: keeping or managing a brothel (summary; maxima in Schedule 2 of the Act, higher after a previous conviction).
• s.33A SOA 1956 (inserted by s.55 SOA 2003 from 1 May 2004): keeping, managing or assisting in managing a brothel to which people resort for practices involving prostitution: 6 months summarily, 7 years on indictment.
• s.34: a landlord letting premises knowing they will be used as a brothel.
• s.35: a tenant or occupier permitting use as a brothel.
• s.36: a tenant or occupier knowingly permitting premises to be used for habitual prostitution.

Part 2A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (from s.136A) lets the police issue closure notices and courts make closure orders for premises associated with specified prostitution offences. The specified offences are ss.52-53 and the child-exploitation offences (s.136A(2)), not brothel-keeping itself.

Brothel-keeping is not listed as a priority offence under the Online Safety Act 2023, unlike ss.52-53 SOA 2003. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's 2026 report notes that some commentators describe adult services websites as "virtual brothels", but that case law largely limits a brothel to physical premises.

This follows from the case-law definition summarised in the CPS guidance (two or more people using the same premises at the same time for prostitution) combined with the wide wording of s.33A SOA 1956 ("keep, or manage, or act or assist in the management of"). There is no statutory exemption for small co-operative arrangements. Sections 34-36 SOA 1956 extend liability to landlords, tenants and occupiers who permit the use.

CPS guidance (2024) treats this low-culpability end as unlikely to warrant prosecution: sex workers who "simply play a minor role in maintaining a premises where more than one person is selling sex" are "less likely to require prosecution", and maintaining such premises is unlikely, without more (e.g. a recruiting role or anti-social behaviour), to require a prosecution in the public interest.

Both offences apply "in any part of the world" and require gain for the defendant or a third person (ss.52(1)(b), 53(1)(b); "gain" is defined in s.54(1)). CPS guidance states that s.52 "cannot be committed if the 'other person' was already a prostitute", so encouraging someone who already sells sex is outside it. CPS guidance (2024) states that "control" includes, but is not limited to, compulsion, coercion and force, citing R v Massey [2007] EWCA Crim 2664, and that a person can be controlled while in an intimate relationship with the controller. The guidance also covers "sex for rent" adverts under s.52. There is no general offence of living on the earnings of prostitution in England and Wales; that older offence survives only in Scotland (s.11 Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995).

Trafficking for sexual exploitation is a separate offence under s.2 Modern Slavery Act 2015 (England and Wales), irrespective of consent.

At Commons committee in 2025 (NC1, Tonia Antoniazzi) and Lords report stage in February-March 2026 (306A, Lord Hacking), amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill proposed an offence of assisting, facilitating, controlling or inciting prostitution "by any means" whether or not for gain, including publishing adverts, with up to 10 years. Both were not moved. A Lords committee amendment (316A/316B, Baroness Ritchie) for an offence of operating platforms selling personalised sexual content for gain was not moved either. A Commons committee amendment creating a specific sex-for-rent offence (NC41, Matt Vickers) was defeated on division.

Section 46 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 ("cards in phone boxes") applies to an advertisement for sexual services, or one indicating premises where such services are offered, placed on or in the immediate vicinity of a public telephone. Anything a reasonable person would consider such an advert is presumed to be one. Penalty: up to 6 months or a level 5 fine. The section applies to England and Wales only.

Adverts are not an offence in themselves, but an advert placed by a third party may be relevant evidence for ss.52-53 SOA 2003 or for brothel-keeping; the CPS guidance discusses adverts in "sex for rent" cases under s.52.

The Crime and Policing Bill (bill 3938) received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026 as the Crime and Policing Act 2026. The UK Parliament bills API records every amendment that would have made it an offence to "cause or allow to be displayed or published, including digitally, any advertisement" for prostitution as "NotMoved": Commons NC1 (committee, 2025), Lords 310 (committee) and 303 and 306A (report stage, 25 February-18 March 2026). Lords 316A/316B on platforms for personalised sexual content were also not moved. The prostitution-related clauses that were agreed (308 and 309, now ss.116-117 of the Act) only disregard and pardon Street Offences Act convictions of people who were under 18.

The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's report "Behind the Profile" (26 February 2026) points out that offline advertising of selling sex is restricted while equivalent online activity remains broadly permissible, and recommends a public consultation on prohibiting adult services websites.

Schedule 7 of the Online Safety Act 2023 lists ss.52-53 SOA 2003 and Articles 62-63 of the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 as priority offences ("sexual exploitation"), alongside human trafficking under the three UK trafficking statutes. Brothel-keeping, the s.53A purchase offence, the Northern Ireland purchase offence and the Scottish prostitution offences are not in Schedule 7. Section 10 sets the illegal-content safety duties for user-to-user services; the Crime and Policing Act 2026 amended it from 29 June 2026 (ss.100-101, a 48-hour takedown duty for reported intimate image content). The government's explainer confirms the illegal content duties have been enforceable since 17 March 2025.

Criminal liability of the site operator under ss.52-53 or the brothel offences is untested. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's legal review (2026) considers that these offences require direct control and are hard to apply to passive intermediaries, and that the hosting defence in reg. 19 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 (no criminal liability without actual knowledge, or with expeditious removal) protects most sites, though perhaps not those that pre-moderate or promote profiles. It reports that Ofcom has issued no codes specific to adult services websites, quotes Ofcom's Illegal Content Judgements Guidance as saying that third-party advertising "can act as a safety measure for some consenting adult sex workers", and recommends tougher Ofcom requirements on third-party-managed profiles, age assurance and trafficking reporting.

The EU Digital Services Act does not apply in the UK.

The persistence requirement, the replacement of "common prostitute" by "person" and the Engagement and Support Orders (s.1(2A)-(2D) and s.1A) were introduced by ss.16-17 Policing and Crime Act 2009 from 1 April 2010; "(whether male or female)" had been added by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 from 1 May 2004, and the age limit by the Serious Crime Act 2015 from 3 May 2015. If the court makes an order under s.1(2A) it may not impose any other penalty. CPS guidance notes that persistence can be evidenced by informal "prostitute's cautions", but that a caution which has already led to a prosecution should not be relied on again.

Sections 116 and 117 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 provide for convictions and cautions under s.1 of the 1959 Act to be automatically disregarded, and pardoned, where the person was under 18 at the time; both were not yet in force at Royal Assent. Lords amendments to abolish the loitering and soliciting offence altogether (312 at committee, 305 at report) were not moved.

Scotland penalises soliciting by sellers without a persistence requirement (s.46 Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982); Northern Ireland repealed its seller offence in 2015.

None of the statutes regulating prostitution in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland establishes a register or licence for people who sell sex, and none requires health checks. The legal framework consists only of criminal offences (Sexual Offences Acts 1956 and 2003, Street Offences Act 1959) and the general law.

HMRC's Business Income Manual (BIM22005-BIM22010) sets out that illegality does not prevent an activity being a taxable trade and that the UK courts apply no moral test. In Inland Revenue Commissioners v Aken the High Court (7 December 1987) held that "a trade was a trade whether it was lawful or unlawful for the purposes of the Taxes Acts", that prostitution was not itself illegal and that the taxpayer's earnings from it were trading income; the Court of Appeal ([1990] 1 WLR 1374, 18 May 1990) upheld the assessment.

Migrants with unrestricted permission to work (for example settled status) are in the same position as UK nationals. Those on visitor or other work-restricted permission breach their conditions by working as self-employed sex workers. Trafficking with a view to sexual exploitation is an offence regardless of consent under s.2 Modern Slavery Act 2015 in England and Wales, s.1 Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 and s.2 of the 2015 Northern Ireland Act, and identified potential victims are referred into the UK-wide National Referral Mechanism.