Prostitution in the United States

Prostitution is illegal in every US state except Nevada, where licensed brothels are permitted in some counties, and Maine, where selling sex is decriminalized but buying sex is illegal. Prostitution nonetheless occurs in all states. A 2008 report by the National Institute of Justice estimated that 15–20 percent of men in the US have paid for sex.

The Constitution does not grant the federal government a general power to regulate commercial sex, and such regulation is therefore, per the Tenth Amendment, exclusively the domain of the states except as it pertains to interstate commerce, which Congress may regulate with laws such as the Mann Act. In most states, prostitution is considered a misdemeanor in the category of public-order crime. Prostitution was once considered a vagrancy crime.

Nevada is the only state that allows legal prostitution in the form of regulated brothels, the terms of which are stipulated in the Nevada Revised Statutes. As of 2023, there were 19 licensed brothels in Nevada. Of the ten Nevada counties that theoretically allow brothel prostitution, only six contain active licensed brothels; the remaining four have none. Prostitution is illegal in all forms in the remaining seven counties, including Clark (which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area) and Washoe (which contains Reno).

In Maine, prostitution is partially decriminalized following the Nordic model. In 2023, the state enacted a law that decriminalized the act of prostitution, which had previously been a Class E crime, equivalent to a misdemeanor in other states. Soliciting or purchasing sex from an adult also remains a Class E crime, while elevating the crime of soliciting and purchasing of sex from a minor was upgraded to a Class C crime, equivalent to a felony.[1]