What is a brothel?

If you search “what is a brothel”, you usually want the umbrella, not a floor plan. The short answer: a Bordell is a house for paid sex. The German word is everyday speech. The statute says prostitution establishment. Laufhaus, sauna club, FKK club: those are ways of building that house, not different laws.

A swinger club, a strip show and an escort booking are other evenings. The sign does not rewrite that split.

What the word covers

The Duden: a house where prostitutes practise their trade. Synonyms include Freudenhaus, Eroscenter, Laufhaus. Colloquially, Puff. Berlin’s public service uses those everyday words as examples of a venue that needs a permit.

Prostitution establishments are buildings, rooms and other fixed facilities used as a place of business to provide sexual services.

Prostitutes Protection Act, § 2

The federal ministry lists brothels, brothel-like businesses, sauna clubs and escort services as models that grew inside the trade. The act therefore splits four forms: establishments, vehicles, events, and mediation. A Bordell in ordinary speech is the establishment. Escort is the mediation: a booking outside the operator’s rooms, not a walk-in corridor.

How the house is built

A classic contact house: you meet in the building, then a room. A laufhaus: workers rent rooms, you walk the halls, an open door often means available, most houses charge no door fee. That piece is What is a laufhaus?

A sauna club or FKK club: a day ticket for sauna, pool, often food. Sex is extra, agreed with a person. FKK on that door is not Freikörperkultur. That piece is What is a sauna club?

Authorities also name massage clubs, SM studios, apartment brothels and model flats as possible establishments, if paid sexual services happen there. That is typology, not a count. Destatis does not split those shapes. In August 2026 it reported about 32,500 registered sex workers and about 2,260 permits. 93 percent of the permits are establishments, “for example brothels”. There is no official laufhaus or sauna subset.

What it is not

A swinger club provides for sex between guests, not with staff. If prostitutes work there with the operator’s knowledge, Baden-Württemberg still treats the house as a prostitution establishment, even if the sign says swinger club. If you want the guest evening, the path is Swinger clubs.

A strip club is a show. Performances with a purely theatrical character, where no other person present is sexually involved, are not sexual services. Table dance is the example in the statute. A brothel in the same building does not, by itself, turn the bar into a prostitution business. Listings: Strip clubs.

A sex cinema shows films, often in booths, 18+. Escort is a booking elsewhere. A tantra massage is a booked session. German courts have treated some of those studios as sexual services. None of that is a walk-in Bordell.

What the law looks at

The shape of sexual services is settled only between the sex worker and the client, on their own responsibility.

Prostitutes Protection Act, § 26

The operator needs a permit for a stated concept and stated rooms, on top of the ordinary trade registration. Running the business without a permit can cost a fine up to 10,000 euros. Instructions about whether, how or how far a sexual service goes are not allowed. A worker may refuse or stop, even after an agreement. Then you do not pay for what did not happen. The 2002 act creates a claim for payment after a sexual act against an agreed fee. It does not give the guest a claim to sex.

For intercourse, clients and sex workers must use condoms. Hamburg names oral, vaginal and anal. The fine is on the client, up to 50,000 euros. Operators must display a notice and keep condoms, lubricant and hygiene items in the service rooms during opening hours. Advertising sex without a condom is banned.

The act applies to prostitution by people over 18. Operators must keep anyone under 18 from being present as a worker, and their operating concept must say how they stop under-18s being there. Flat-rate models that bind someone to an open-ended number of sexual acts are not permitted.

What to settle before the door

• The house page: hours, 18+, door fee or free entry, bar or rooms only.
• Who may enter as a guest. If the site is silent, do not invent a couple night.
• The condom notice. If it is missing, that is information about the house.
• Price and practices with the person, before anything starts. The house does not set the sex.
• No is enough. Walking out is part of the model.

What the directory lists

Brothels are not a live listing category here. Neither are laufhäuser or FKK clubs. This page explains the word. If you meant sex between guests, Swinger clubs. If you meant a show, Strip clubs. If you meant films, Sex cinemas. If you meant a booked session, Tantra massage.

Short version: a Bordell is the umbrella. The statute says establishment. A laufhaus is corridors. A sauna club is a day ticket. A swinger club is guests. A strip club is a show. The person in the room is not a product, and may say no.