Comprendre la législation sur la prostitution en Thaïlande : est-elle totalement illégale ?

Révisé par ThaiLawOnline, un cabinet d'avocats thaïlandais agréé exerçant en Thaïlande depuis 2006. Avocate thaïlandaise en charge du dossier : Wichuda Atthamethakon, LL.M., licence du barreau thaïlandais 3149/2556.

Dernière mise à jour le 24 août 2026

TL;DR La prostitution est illégale en Thaïlande sur le papier, mais largement tolérée dans les faits. La loi vise le racolage et la traite des personnes, tandis que le travail du sexe privé et consenti reste souvent impuni. Un projet de loi de 2023 vise à dépénaliser et à réglementer ce secteur pour les adultes de plus de 20 ans.

Points clés pour obtenir le meilleur rapidement

• Illégal mais toléréLe travail du sexe prospère malgré les lois qui l'interdisent, notamment dans les bars et les salons de massage.
• Des lois strictes sur le papierDes peines sévères sont prévues pour le proxénétisme, les maisons closes, la traite des êtres humains et les activités impliquant des mineurs.
• Les actes privés sont généralement ignorés.Le travail du sexe consenti entre adultes est rarement poursuivi en justice.
• Réforme en coursUn projet de loi de 2023 propose de légaliser le travail du sexe pour les personnes de 20 ans et plus.
• travailleurs vulnérablesLa législation actuelle ne laisse aux travailleuses du sexe que peu de protection et de soutien juridique.

Ces dernières années, la Thaïlande a acquis une certaine notoriété en tant que plaque tournante majeure pour trafic sexuel. La prostitution reste illégale en Thaïlande, mais cela pourrait bientôt changer. Ce commerce illicite a fait de nombreuses victimes, thaïlandaises et étrangères, et constitue une grave violation des droits humains. Le gouvernement thaïlandais a mis en œuvre diverses mesures pour lutter contre le trafic sexuel, mais le problème demeure très répandu dans le pays. La prostitution y est toujours illégale, mais largement pratiquée.

La traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle consiste à recruter, déplacer ou retenir des personnes contre leur gré. Cela se fait par la force, la fraude ou la pression à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle. De nombreuses victimes sont attirées par de faux prétextes, notamment la promesse d'opportunités d'emploi. Elles croient ainsi améliorer leurs conditions de vie, mais se retrouvent piégées dans un système de traite. commerce du sexe.

C’est pourquoi il existe des lois pour protéger les victimes. La prostitution est-elle illégale en Thaïlande ? Quel est l’impact sur le statut juridique des travailleuses du sexe ? La question n’est pas si simple. Un acte peut être illégal tout en étant toléré. La légalité d’un acte peut varier d’un pays à l’autre et évoluer avec le temps. Par exemple, le cannabis était illégal en Thaïlande jusqu’en 2020 et se répand désormais très rapidement. Comment les lois thaïlandaises sur la prostitution évoluent-elles pour répondre à ce besoin ? complexités du travail du sexe’ Droits professionnels ? »

La situation géographique de la Thaïlande, ses disparités économiques et son secteur touristique attirent les réseaux de traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle. Les personnes vulnérables, comme les femmes, les enfants et les migrants, sont souvent ciblées par les trafiquants qui profitent de leur situation précaire. Voyons comment fonctionnent les lois sur la prostitution en Thaïlande.

La prostitution est-elle illégale en Thaïlande ? Quelles sont les lois relatives à la prostitution en Thaïlande ?

Oui, cela reste illégal, mais c'est largement toléré et rarement puni entre adultes consentants. Le gouvernement actuel souhaite modifier les lois en collaboration avec les organisations internationales. Le gouvernement thaïlandais a mis en œuvre diverses lois et initiatives pour lutter contre le trafic sexuel. La loi de 1996 sur la prévention et la répression de la prostitution, par exemple, criminalise la prostitution et les activités connexes. Elle se concentre principalement sur abus et traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle of children. Section 8 punishes the buyer. Having sexual intercourse with, or committing any other act for sexual gratification on, a person over fifteen but not over eighteen inside a prostitution establishment carries one to three years and a fine of 20,000 to 60,000 baht, whether or not that person consented. Where the child is not over fifteen it is two to six years and a fine of 40,000 to 120,000 baht. Consent is no defence in either case.

Aspect juridique	Explication
La prostitution est-elle légale ?	Techniquement, le statut juridique du travail du sexe en Thaïlande est complexe et souvent sujet à débat. illégal en vertu de la loi BE 2539 (1996) sur la prévention et la répression de la prostitution.
Problèmes courants d'application de la loi	L'application de la loi est souvent incohérente. De nombreux établissements opèrent en toute discrétion, notamment ceux impliqués dans la prostitution sur la voie publique.
Penalty for selling sex	Soliciting in a street or public place, openly and shamefully or so as to be a nuisance: a fine not exceeding 1,000 baht and no imprisonment (section 5). Congregating in a prostitution establishment for the purposes of prostitution: up to 1 month, or up to 1,000 baht, or both (section 6), with no offence at all where the person acted under compulsion or under a power they could not escape.
Penalty for buying sex	The 1996 Act creates no general offence of buying sex from a consenting adult. Buying sex in a prostitution establishment from a person over 15 but not over 18 is 1 to 3 years and a fine of 20,000 to 60,000 baht; where the child is not over 15 it is 2 to 6 years and 40,000 to 120,000 baht (section 8). A client in a raided venue is otherwise reached through section 6.
propriétaires ou exploitants de bordels	Owner, supervisor or manager of a prostitution business or establishment, or controller of the people working in it: 3 to 15 years and a fine of 60,000 to 300,000 baht (section 11). 60,000 is the minimum fine, not the maximum, and imprisonment is not an alternative to it. Where someone over 15 but not over 18 works there it becomes 5 to 15 years and 100,000 to 300,000 baht; where a child not over 15 does, 10 to 20 years and 200,000 to 400,000 baht.
implications du trafic d'êtres humains	Peines sévères en vertu de lois distinctes sur la traite des êtres humains (Loi anti-traite des êtres humains BE 2551).
Âge du consentement	L'âge légal du consentement sexuel est de 15 ans, mais le commerce du sexe ne doit impliquer aucune personne de moins de 18 ans.
Conséquences touristiques	Les étrangers impliqués dans des affaires de prostitution ou de trafic d'êtres humains avec des mineurs peuvent être expulsés ou inscrits sur une liste noire.
Pratique en situation réelle	Malgré la loi, le travail du sexe est répandu dans des endroits comme Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket, etc.
efforts de réforme	Des débats sont en cours concernant la dépénalisation et l'amélioration des droits des travailleuses du sexe, notamment en ce qui concerne la lutte contre le trafic sexuel.

The 1996 Act repealed the Prostitution Suppression Act of 1960 and is now the central statute on the subject. Its standing criticism is that it does not separate consensual adult sex work from trafficking. One statute carries a 1,000 baht fine for soliciting and ten to twenty years for coercing someone into prostitution, and the person selling sex can be processed as an offender under section 5 or section 6 before anyone has asked whether they were coerced.

Des efforts ont été déployés pour renforcer les forces de l'ordre et améliorer la protection des victimes. Des unités de police spécialisées luttent contre la traite des êtres humains et la prostitution, un fléau qui perdure depuis des générations. Des initiatives centrées sur les victimes apportent soutien et assistance aux personnes rescapées de l'exploitation sexuelle. Par ailleurs, le gouvernement a mis en œuvre des campagnes de sensibilisation et des programmes éducatifs afin d'informer le public sur la traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle et ses conséquences. Contrairement aux idées reçues, la prostitution des mineurs est relativement rare en Thaïlande. Les autorités ont pris de nombreuses mesures pour réduire la traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation sexuelle dans le pays.

The Offences Most Guides Leave Out

The 1996 Act is usually summarised as three offences: selling, buying and keeping a venue. It contains several more, and the ones left out are the ones that carry the heaviest sentences. Every figure below is read from the Thai text of the Act.

Procuring: section 9, and consent is no answer to it

Article 9 is the provision that reaches agents, recruiters and anyone who arranges the supply of people. It punishes procuring, luring or taking away any person so that they engage in prostitution, and it says two things that matter more than the headline penalty. The person’s consent is not a defence: the section applies “even though that person consents”. And it has extraterritorial reach, applying whether the acts constituting the offence were done inside or outside the Kingdom.

The penalty is 1 to 10 years and a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 baht. Where the person procured is over fifteen but not over eighteen it rises to 5 to 15 years and 100,000 to 300,000 baht, and where the person is a child not over fifteen, to 10 to 20 years and 200,000 to 400,000 baht. Paragraph four then adds a further aggravation that is easy to trigger: where the act was done by deceit, threat, violence, undue influence or any form of coercion, the penalty is increased by one third.

Article 10 extends this to the family. A parent or guardian of a person under eighteen who knows of a section 9 offence against the person in their charge and connives at it faces 4 to 20 years and 80,000 to 400,000 baht.

Coercion: section 12, the heaviest penalty in the Act

Article 12 covers detaining or confining another person, depriving them of liberty, causing them bodily harm, or threatening violence, in order to compel them into prostitution. The penalty is 10 to 20 years and 200,000 to 400,000 baht. If the victim suffers grievous bodily harm the penalty is emprisonnement à vie; if the victim dies it is death or life imprisonment. A person who supports the offence is punished as the principal is.

The paragraph nobody quotes is the last one. Where the offender or the supporter is an administrative or police official, or an officer of a primary shelter or of a protection and occupational development centre under this Act, the sentence becomes 15 to 20 years and 300,000 to 400,000 baht. The statute anticipates that the people running the protective system may be the ones exploiting it, and punishes them more heavily for it.

Advertising: section 7

Section 7 punishes advertising or accepting advertising, and soliciting or introducing by document, printed matter or by making it public through any method, in a manner that can be seen to be a solicitation or contact for prostitution, one’s own or another person’s. The penalty is 6 months to 2 years, or a fine of 10,000 to 40,000 baht, or both. The words “by any method” are what carry it onto online listings and messaging apps, which is where this conduct now happens.

One consequence sits outside the penal scale entirely. Under section 13, where the parent or guardian of someone who commits a section 5, 6 or 7 offence has connived at their prostitution, the public prosecutor may apply, at the request of the Protection and Occupational Development Committee, for the removal of that parent’s or guardian’s parental power and the appointment of a replacement guardian, with the guardianship provisions of the Code civil et commercial applying to the appointment.

Code pénal et lois sur la prostitution en Thaïlande

Living off the earnings of prostitution is dealt with by section 286 of the Penal Code. The whole section was repealed and replaced by the Criminal Code Amendment Act (No. 27) B.E. 2562, Royal Gazette volume 136 part 69 Kor, 27 May 2019, in force from 28 May 2019. It now lists seven separate ways of committing the offence, and the penalty for any of them is imprisonment not exceeding twenty years and a fine not exceeding four hundred thousand baht, or imprisonment for life.

The seven limbs are: assisting, facilitating or protecting the prostitution of another person; receiving a benefit in any form from another person’s prostitution or from a person who engages in prostitution; compelling, threatening, deceiving or unjustly influencing another person, or taking another person into employment, for the purpose of prostitution; arranging prostitution between a person who engages in prostitution and a client; concealing or disguising the source of income or property obtained from prostitution; habitually living or associating with one or more people who engage in prostitution while unable to show the source of the income one lives on; and obstructing an agency responsible for preventing or controlling prostitution or for assisting or educating the people caught up in it. The final paragraph excludes anyone receiving a benefit they are entitled to by law or by moral obligation, which is what keeps a sex worker’s dependent family outside the second limb

Two things about section 286 matter in practice. The fourth limb, arranging prostitution between a sex worker and a client, is what reaches an agent, a booker or a venue that puts the two in contact, and no money has to pass through that person’s hands for it to bite. And the old wording that punished a person over sixteen who lived off a prostitute’s earnings, together with the presumptions built around living with or habitually associating with a sex worker, has not been law since 28 May 2019. Any English summary still quoting a seven to twenty year term under section 286 is quoting a repealed provision.

Le Code pénal contient une règle générale interdisant toute acte indécent with a child under 15 years old. This rule includes child prostitution.  Section 279 of the Penal Code states:

“Whoever commits an indecent act on a child not over fifteen years of age, whether or not such child consents, shall be punished with imprisonment not exceeding ten years, or fined not exceeding two hundred thousand Baht, or both.” Children are clearly protected related to prostitution laws in Thailand and sec trafficking.

Indecent Acts and the Age of Consent

Le Code pénal en Thaïlande ne définit pas ce qui constitue un “ acte indécent ”.”

Section 279 raises the penalty where the child is not over thirteen: imprisonment of one to ten years, or a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 baht, or both. A third paragraph of the same section raises it again, to one to fifteen years or a fine of 20,000 to 300,000 baht or both, where the act was committed by threat of any kind, by violence, while the child was in a state in which they could not resist, or by making the child mistake the offender for someone else

Section 277 of the Penal Code makes sexual intercourse with a child not over fifteen who is not the offender’s spouse an offence whether or not the child consents. The penalty is five to twenty years and a fine of 100,000 to 400,000 baht (Penal Code section 277). The provision has been gender neutral since the Criminal Code Amendment Act (No. 27) B.E. 2562, which also inserted the definition of sexual intercourse at section 1(18); English texts that still speak of a “girl” are quoting the pre-2019 wording.

Where the child is not over thirteen the penalty rises to seven to twenty years and a fine of 140,000 to 400,000 baht, or imprisonment for life. Two further paragraphs raise it again: ten to twenty years, or life, where the offender made the child believe he was carrying a firearm or an explosive, and life imprisonment where a weapon was carried or used, or where two or more offenders acted together.

The marriage exemption no longer exists. Until 2019 an offender could escape punishment under section 277 where the court permitted him to marry a child over thirteen but not over fifteen. The Criminal Code Amendment Act (No. 27) B.E. 2562 repealed that paragraph outright and replaced it with something different: where the offender is himself not over eighteen and the child was over thirteen but not over fifteen and consented, the Juvenile and Family Court may order welfare protection measures under the child protection law instead of imposing punishment, and if those measures fail the court may still sentence below the statutory minimum. Marriage is not a route out of a section 277 prosecution, and since 23 January 2025 it could not be one in any event, because section 1448 of the Civil and Commercial Code now requires both parties to have completed their eighteenth year.

In Thailand the age of consent is fifteen. The provision is section 277, not section 279: section 277 covers sexual intercourse and section 279 covers indecent acts, and both apply whether or not the child consented. Above fifteen, consent does not close the question. Sections 282 and 283 punish procuring, luring or taking away a person of any age for an indecent purpose to gratify someone else, with the penalty stepping up where the person is over fifteen but not over eighteen and again where they are not over fifteen. Section 285 adds one third to the sentence where the victim was an ascendant, a descendant, a pupil in the offender’s care, or anyone under the offender’s control, guardianship or power. And commercial sex with anyone under eighteen is separately an offence under section 8 of the 1996 Act, whatever the age of consent may be.

Il est important de savoir que l'âge du consentement est de 15 ans. Cependant, d'autres lois peuvent également s'appliquer. Ces lois contribuent à protéger les mineurs et à prévenir leur exploitation.

Voici quelques articles importants concernant la législation sur les travailleuses du sexe, Trafic d'êtres humains et prostitution en Thaïlande.

• Code pénal thaïlandais, article 279: indecent act on a child not over fifteen, whether or not the child consents. Section 279 is not the intercourse provision; that is section 277.
• Code pénal thaïlandais, article 277: sexual intercourse with a child not over fifteen. “Whoever has sexual intercourse with a child not over fifteen years of age, who is not his own wife or her own husband, whether or not the child consents, shall be liable to imprisonment from five to twenty years and a fine from one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand baht. Where the offence under paragraph one is committed against a child not over thirteen years of age, the offender shall be liable to imprisonment from seven to twenty years and a fine from one hundred and forty thousand to four hundred thousand baht, or to imprisonment for life.” Coercion against a person over fifteen is not section 277: it falls under section 276, or under sections 282 and 283 where the person was procured for another’s gratification.
• Loi sur la protection de l'enfance (2003) article 4. “ Enfant ” désigne une personne âgée de moins de 18 ans, mais n’inclut pas celles qui ont atteint la majorité par le mariage, ce qui est une préoccupation dans les discussions sur le statut juridique des travailleuses du sexe.
• Loi anti-traite des personnes BE 2551 (2008), article 4 : “ Enfant ” désigne toute personne âgée de moins de dix-huit ans. ”
• Code civil de Thaïlande, specifies that majority is 20 years old (clause 19) while marriage requires both parties to have completed their eighteenth year (section 1448). A court may permit an earlier marriage where there is appropriate cause, and a minor who marries needs the consent of the persons listed in section 1436 (section 1454). The minimum age was seventeen until 23 January 2025.

Who Sells Sex in Thailand, and Under What Pressures

Les lois sur la prostitution en Thaïlande n'ont pas permis de réduire le travail du sexe commercial. Cela nous aide à comprendre les conséquences pour les travailleuses et travailleurs du sexe. Nombre d'entre eux choisissent cette profession ou s'y adonnent par nécessité financière. Ils travaillent souvent dans des lieux publics et des maisons closes. Les travailleuses et travailleurs du sexe en Thaïlande sont confrontés à de nombreux défis, d'ordre social, économique et juridique, qui influencent leur dépendance à la prostitution. Ce problème persiste depuis de nombreuses années. Une grande partie de la population s'accorde à dire que les lois sur la prostitution en Thaïlande doivent être réformées. La législation actuelle ne correspond pas à l'opinion publique.

La prostitution reste très répandue, malgré la législation thaïlandaise en vigueur. Nombreuses sont les personnes qui choisissent le travail du sexe pour des raisons économiques ou par choix personnel. C'est notamment le cas à Pattaya, où la prostitution, ancrée depuis des décennies, est une réalité. Les difficultés rencontrées par les travailleuses et travailleurs du sexe en Thaïlande sont liées à divers facteurs sociaux, économiques et juridiques. Beaucoup de Thaïlandais sont favorables à une réforme de la législation sur la prostitution. Ils souhaitent que les lois reflètent l'opinion publique sur le travail du sexe, y compris les professions d'escorte et de prostituée dans les bars.

Les facteurs économiques influencent fortement la décision des individus de se prostituer. La pauvreté, le manque d'opportunités d'emploi et la nécessité de subvenir aux besoins de leur famille poussent souvent des personnes vers ce commerce. La perspective d'une rémunération plus élevée que dans d'autres secteurs est une des principales raisons qui poussent de nombreuses personnes à se prostituer.

La stigmatisation sociale entourant le travail du sexe commercial crée des problèmes pour les personnes qui exercent dans ce secteur. Elle leur rend difficile la satisfaction des besoins sexuels de leurs clients en toute sécurité. Les travailleurs du sexe en Thaïlande font souvent face à l'ostracisme, à la discrimination et à un accès limité aux soins de santé et aux services sociaux. La marginalisation des travailleurs du sexe exacerbe leur vulnérabilité à l'exploitation, à la violence et aux abus. N'oubliez pas que la religion peut façonner les croyances et le comportement d'un pays. Les lois sur la prostitution en Thaïlande peuvent être très différentes de celles d'autres pays. Elles peuvent également changer d'une année à l'autre.

Policing, Reform and the Position of Sex Workers

La législation sur la prostitution en Thaïlande pose un problème complexe aux travailleuses du sexe. Elles évoluent dans une zone grise juridique et sont souvent victimes de harcèlement et de corruption policière. Il est parfois difficile de déterminer si une personne se prostitue par choix ou sous la contrainte. Les travailleuses du sexe ont besoin d'aide et de soutien si elles sont maltraitées ou exploitées.

Prostitution has been prohibited since the Prostitution Suppression Act of 1960, replaced by the present Act in 1996. The “up to 20 years” figure that circulates online is not what a sex worker faces. Selling sex by soliciting in public is a fine of up to 1,000 baht and nothing more. The long sentences in the Act attach to procuring, to running the establishment and to coercion, which is to say to the people around the sex worker rather than to the sex worker. Estimates of the number of people selling sex in Thailand range from about 100,000 to 400,000, and no official count exists.

Des groupes et des militants s'efforcent de protéger les droits des travailleuses du sexe en Thaïlande. Ils souhaitent mettre fin à la stigmatisation, améliorer leurs conditions de travail, leur fournir des soins de santé et garantir leur protection juridique.

Bien que le gouvernement s'efforce de lutter contre le trafic sexuel, celui-ci demeure un problème majeur en Thaïlande. Il est essentiel que la police collabore avec les organisations internationales pour endiguer ce fléau. Des réformes sont nécessaires pour traiter les enjeux économiques, sociaux et juridiques liés à la prostitution en Thaïlande.

Venue Licensing: Where Enforcement Actually Happens

Almost every English article on this subject stops at the 1996 Act and the Penal Code. That is not where a bar, a massage parlour or a karaoke venue actually gets into trouble. Prosecuting an individual sex worker produces a 1,000 baht fine. What closes a business is its licence.

An entertainment place, in Thai sathan borikan, is licensed under the Entertainment Places Act B.E. 2509 (1966), and ministerial regulations issued under it fix the categories of venue and the permitted opening hours. The most recent of those, the Ministerial Regulation Prescribing Opening and Closing Times of Entertainment Places (No. 2) B.E. 2566, signed on 21 August 2023 and published on 26 August 2023, lets venues inside the Eastern Aviation City promotion zone open twenty four hours.

Sitting on top of that licensing regime is Head of the National Council for Peace and Order Order No. 22/2558, dated 22 July 2015, Royal Gazette volume 132 special part 171 Ngor page 7, amended by Order No. 46/2559, Royal Gazette volume 133 special part 169 Ngor page 4. It is still in force. It is not among the orders repealed by the Act Repealing Certain Announcements and Orders of the National Council for Peace and Order B.E. 2568, whose schedule reaches orders 3, 4, 5, 23, 29 and 36 of 2558 but not order 22.

Clause 4 forbids the operator of an entertainment place, or of any premises operating in a manner similar to an entertainment place, from doing any of the following:

• allowing anyone under twenty years of age to use the premises;
• selling alcohol to anyone under twenty;
• opening beyond the hours the law allows;
• selling alcohol beyond the hours the law allows;
• allowing weapons, explosives or narcotics onto the premises;
• allowing an offence of human trafficking to be committed on the premises;
• allowing gambling on the premises.

The consequence is the part worth reading twice. Where any of those happens, the competent authority may revoke the licence, or order the premises closed and prohibit any entertainment place from operating at that address again for five years. A pending renewal is refused, and no new licence may be issued to that operator for five years. Where the venue stands near a school or a student dormitory the prohibition is permanent, and the liquor licence is revoked with it. Clause 4 then provides that the order is final, so there is no appeal against it. Reopening inside the five year ban is a separate offence under clause 6/1, punishable by up to one year, or a fine of up to 20,000 baht, or both.

Two things follow for anyone operating or investing in a venue. The phrase premises operating in a manner similar to an entertainment place is deliberate: not holding a licence does not put a bar outside the Order, it puts it outside the protection of one. And clause 4(1) uses twenty years of age, not eighteen and not the age of consent. A venue that admits a nineteen year old customer has committed the breach that carries the five year closure, whether or not anything sexual took place there.

Running in parallel, section 11 of the 1996 Act reaches the owner, supervisor or manager of a prostitution establishment personally, at three to fifteen years and a fine of 60,000 to 300,000 baht, and section 286(1) and (4) of the Penal Code reaches anyone who assists, facilitates or protects another person’s prostitution or arranges it between a sex worker and a client. Those are the provisions under which the management, rather than the premises, is prosecuted.

One caveat we would rather state than paper over. We have named the Entertainment Places Act B.E. 2509 only as the licensing statute it is. Its consolidated Thai text is not reachable through the Royal Gazette document endpoint, the Council of State search, Thai Wikisource or our own corpus, so we have not quoted any section number or penalty from the Act itself. Every figure above comes from Order 22/2558 or from the two statutes named, each read in the Thai original.

FAQs about Prostitution Laws in Thailand

Is prostitution illegal in Thailand?

Yes, under the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act B.E. 2539 (1996). What the Act actually punishes is narrower than most readers expect. Soliciting in public is a fine of up to 1,000 baht under section 5, and there is no general offence of buying sex from a consenting adult. The heavy penalties fall on procuring, on running the establishment, and on anything involving a person under eighteen.

What penalty does a sex worker face?

Section 5, soliciting in a street or public place openly and shamefully or so as to be a nuisance to the public: a fine not exceeding 1,000 baht, with no imprisonment. Section 6, congregating in a prostitution establishment for the purposes of prostitution: up to one month, or up to 1,000 baht, or both. Section 6 paragraph two provides that there is no offence at all where the person acted under compulsion or under a power they could not avoid or resist.

What penalty does a brothel owner face?

Section 11: three to fifteen years and a fine of 60,000 to 300,000 baht. The fine is a minimum, not a maximum, and the prison term is not an alternative to it. Where a person over fifteen but not over eighteen works there it becomes five to fifteen years and 100,000 to 300,000 baht, and where a child not over fifteen does, ten to twenty years and 200,000 to 400,000 baht.

Can a foreigner be prosecuted?

Yes. Nothing in the 1996 Act or in the Penal Code provisions on this page turns on nationality. A foreign customer in a raided venue is exposed under section 6, and under section 8 if the other person was under eighteen. A conviction can carry immigration consequences as well, but those are decided under the Immigration Act and not under these provisions.

What is the age of consent, and does it settle commercial sex?

The age of consent is fifteen, under section 277 of the Penal Code, and it does not settle commercial sex. Section 8 of the 1996 Act makes it an offence to buy sex in a prostitution establishment from anyone under eighteen: one to three years and 20,000 to 60,000 baht where the person is over fifteen, and two to six years and 40,000 to 120,000 baht where the child is not over fifteen. Separately, clause 4(1) of Order 22/2558 bars anyone under twenty from an entertainment place at all.

Has sex work been decriminalised?

No. A bill to repeal the 1996 Act and regulate adult sex work was reported in March 2023. It has not been enacted. The 1996 Act remains in force exactly as set out on this page.

Why does the law look unenforced?

Because most of the enforcement that happens is administrative rather than criminal. Order 22/2558 lets an authority revoke a venue’s licence and bar any entertainment place from that address for five years, with no appeal, which is faster and heavier than prosecuting individuals under the 1996 Act. A street that looks tolerated can sit in a district that is closing venues.

Sources and Further Reading

The sections quoted above are reproduced in full, with commentary, in our annotated Penal Code, and the Supreme Court has applied section 277 in the two judgments below.

• Penal Code section 277, sexual intercourse with a child not over fifteen
• Penal Code section 279, indecent act on a child not over fifteen
• Penal Code section 286, living off the earnings of prostitution
• Supreme Court Decision 6336/2557, on what counts as an act falling within section 277 paragraph two
• Supreme Court Decision 2417/2540, on distinguishing attempted rape from an indecent act by the offender’s intention from the outset
• Age of consent in Thailand, which sets out the age rules these sections turn on
• Human trafficking under Thai law, the offence most often charged alongside the ones on this page
• Criminal law in Thailand, for how a prosecution actually proceeds
• Draft law to decriminalise sex work, reported March 2023. It has not been enacted.