Questions and answers

Selling sexual services between adults is lawful in England, Wales and Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, though paying for them is an offence there. Surrounding activities are offences everywhere: soliciting in a public place, brothel-keeping, and causing, inciting or controlling prostitution for gain. Set out on escorting and UK law.

Between £75 and £150 an hour on the main listing sites, with £100 the commonest band. Travel is charged separately and dinner and overnight bookings are quoted as flat figures. See rates.

Far less than the hourly rate suggests. The largest UK survey of internet-based sex workers found 54 per cent working ten hours a week or less and just over half earning under £20,000 a year. For most people it is a supplementary income. See earnings.

Eighteen is the legal minimum throughout the UK and it is not negotiable. Listing sites set their own floor higher, usually around 21, and typically accept applicants up to the mid-fifties.

Yes. HMRC taxes the profits of a trade regardless of whether the trade is lawful, and says so in its published manuals. Self Assessment applies once income passes the £1,000 trading allowance. See tax and self-employment.

Not always, and not only. A substantial share of bookings are dinner, an event, an afternoon or company, and even in bookings that include sex the majority of the time is usually spent talking. The fee is quoted for time rather than for anything else.

A cross-section of the population. Ages run from the early twenties to the sixties, incomes across the whole range, mostly single with a minority in relationships. There is no typical client and any account that describes one is describing a fantasy.

Only where the escort is travelling a long way. For an ordinary local booking the whole fee is paid in cash at the start. Requests for payment by gift card, cryptocurrency or transfer to a third party are not booking requests.

Every three months, according to the BASHH clinical standard for people involved in sex work, using triple-site testing for chlamydia and gonorrhoea plus HIV and syphilis. Free at NHS sexual health clinics. See sexual health.

It may meet the legal definition of a brothel in England and Wales, and there is no exemption for sharing premises for safety. CPS guidance indicates prosecution is unlikely without an aggravating factor, but that is a charging policy rather than legality. Anyone considering it should take legal advice.

No. Listing sites state plainly that an escort may decline any request or any client, and in practice escorts decline regularly. An escort may also end a booking early, and the fee for time already taken is not usually returned.

Largely. A first name that need not be the real one and a working telephone number is usually the whole of what is given. Cash leaves nothing on a statement. See discretion and privacy.

Six to twelve weeks from a serious enquiry to a first booking is typical, most of it spent waiting for a new profile to be found. The first month or two after a listing goes live is usually quiet regardless of quality.

The market is larger, more visible and faster moving, with shorter bookings on average. The law is identical. See gay and bisexual male escorts.

No. It publishes information. It represents no escorts, hosts no real profiles and cannot pass a message to anyone. Booking runs through the agency named on the booking pages.