New Zealand decriminalised sex work in 2003. Most people know that much. What fewer people know is that the same Act kept a short list of rules about advertising, and that almost everything about how escorts advertise in this country today follows from those few lines.

This is a plain-language tour of the rules. It is not legal advice, and if your situation is unusual, talk to someone who can give you that. But the basics are not complicated, and knowing them makes advertising a much less nervous business.

The Act, and what it set out to do

The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 replaced a patchwork of criminal offences with a framework that treats sex work as work. Its stated purposes are to safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation, to promote their welfare and occupational health and safety, to be conducive to public health, and to prohibit the use of anyone under 18 in prostitution.

Two things follow from that framing and they matter more than any individual rule. First, an adult in New Zealand can offer commercial sexual services, advertise them, and be paid for them, without committing an offence. Second, the protections run in the worker’s favour: you cannot be made to provide a service, you can refuse at any point, and a contract for sexual services cannot be enforced against you.

What the advertising rules restrict

Section 11 of the Act is the advertising section, and it is short. An advertisement for commercial sexual services must not be broadcast on radio or television, must not be published in a newspaper or periodical except in the classified advertisements section, and must not be displayed on a sign, poster or billboard in a public place. A publisher or broadcaster who breaks those rules commits an offence.

Read that list again and notice what is not on it. The Act was drafted in 2003 and it lists broadcast, print and public signage. Online advertising is not one of the restricted channels. That single fact explains the shape of the whole New Zealand market: the classified sections shrank, the directories moved online, and today an independent escort in Auckland or Wellington advertises on a website rather than in the back pages.

The Act also lets territorial authorities make bylaws about signage and about where brothels can operate. Those bylaws are real and they vary by council, but they are about physical signs and physical premises. A listing on a website does not put a sign in a public place.

Who needs a certificate, and who does not

Operators of a business of prostitution need an operator’s certificate from the court. That covers people who run brothels and escort agencies. It does not cover an independent worker, and it does not cover a small owner-operated arrangement of up to four workers where each keeps control of their own earnings.

An advertising directory is not an operator either. It publishes advertisements. It does not employ anyone, does not arrange bookings, and does not take a share of what anyone earns. That distinction is the whole basis on which a site like this one exists, and it is why a listing here describes you in your own words, with your own rates and your own boundaries, rather than as part of somebody else’s business.

The two hard limits

Two parts of the Act are absolute, and any honest directory has to build around them.

Nobody under 18 may be used in prostitution, and it is an offence to arrange, receive payment for, or assist that. This is why an identity check comes before a listing goes live rather than after. The check exists to establish that the person advertising is an adult. It is not a character reference and it is not a guarantee about anything else, and nobody should tell you otherwise.

The second limit is immigration. Section 19 of the Act says that no visa may be granted on the basis of providing commercial sexual services, and that a person on a temporary entry class visa may not provide them. If you are in New Zealand as a visitor, a student or on a work visa, this work is not lawful for you here, and no advertisement changes that. Citizens and residents are not affected.

What this means for an online listing

Put together, the rules are permissive about the advertisement itself and strict about who is behind it. In practice that means:

• You can describe your services, your rates and your availability openly. There is no requirement to be coy.
• You choose the words. A directory can set content standards, and should, but the listing is yours.
• Expect to prove you are an adult before anything is published. A site that skips that step is exposing you to the people it should be keeping out.
• Expect a person to read the listing before it goes live. Pre-publication review is slower than instant publishing and it is the only way the age rule and the content rules actually get applied.
• If you tour, the same rules travel with you. Advertising your dates in another city is advertising, and it is legal in the same way.

If you are weighing up where and how to advertise, the escort listing plans page sets out what a listing here includes and what it costs, with nothing added at checkout. And whether or not you ever list with us, the safety centre for escorts and clients is worth a read: decriminalisation means you can screen openly and call the police without being arrested yourself, and most practical safety advice in New Zealand is simply making use of that.

The law here is better than in most of the world. It is worth knowing exactly what it says.