Singapore isn’t exactly the place you’d imagine when you think of red light districts and brothels – after all, this is the land where chewing gum and jaywalking are practically outlawed.
But, surprise surprise: Prostitution is actually legal here under strict regulations. Below we’ll tour the city’s brothel scene and infamous spots… from the neon-lit lorongs of Geylang to the now-faded glory of Orchard Towers.
If you’ve set foot in the red light district of Geylang, chances are you’ve passed by several brothels where sex is sold to a variety of willing customers, including locals, tourists and expats. How do you find them? And what are they like inside? Well, let’s take a look…
Brothels In Singapore
Are Singapore’s Brothels Legal?
Technically, no.
In some places, yes.
Prostitution itself isn’t a crime, but almost everything around it is tightly regulated.
The only truly legal way to pay for sex is to do so at a government-sanctioned brothel.
In practice, that means the working girl and the establishment must be officially licensed. Only sex workers operating from licensed brothels (and their customers) are protected by law. So, any other kind of prostitution is illegal.
In other words, your casual streetwalker, illicit massage parlour or escort operation is running afoul of Singaporean law, and the authorities won’t hesitate to raid or prosecute, although in practice… there’s an awful lot of sex sold underground.
Licensed Brothels
So what does a “licensed” brothel entail in Singapore?
Well, for starters, it means being tucked away in the designated red light zone (more on that soon) and following a laundry list of regulations. Sex workers must carry a government-issued health card and undergo regular medical check-ups for STIs.
They also need a special work permit infamously known as the “yellow card,” which comes with strings attached. To qualify for this yellow card, a worker has to be a legally recognized female between 21 and 35 years old and hail from one of only five approved countries (China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, or Singapore).
She even has to pass an interview with the police before getting the gig!
If that sounds restrictive, it is – Singapore essentially allows regulated brothels on the condition that foreign women fill most of the roster, on fixed-term stints. In fact, once a worker’s yellow card expires, she’s deported and banned from re-entering Singapore for years or even life. Tough contract.
Working Conditions For Brothel Workers
Life inside a legal brothel is heavily monitored. Many operate dormitory-style: workers are typically required to live on-site and must ask permission to step out, even for a meal.
If caught leaving without leave, they can be fined about S$500 by the brothel management.
They usually work six or seven days a week with minimal breaks, so it’s no 9-to-5 job – more like 7-to-11, seven days a week. And don’t even think about dating a local; legal sex workers are not allowed to have romantic relationships with Singaporean citizens.
On the flip side, running an unlicensed brothel or pimping is completely illegal under Singapore’s Women’s Charter (the primary law governing vice). Being a pimp or “living off the earnings” of a prostitute can land you up to 5 years in jail – and yes, that applies to mamasans and brothel owners too.
Various Crackdowns
Recent law enforcement trends reflect Singapore’s zero-tolerance for unsanctioned fun. In 2018, the government sharply increased penalties for illegal massage parlours (still prevalent in Singapore) that were basically fronts for prostitution, raising fines tenfold (to S$10,000) and allowing police to shut down rogue establishments on the spot.
Police regularly conduct sting operations against unlicensed massage joints and secret brothels hidden in apartments. More publicly, authorities have also moved to snuff out well-known hotspots of illegal activity. The most famous example is Orchard Towers, a multi-story complex that earned the nickname “Four Floors of Whores” for its infamous nightlife scene and hookers on the prowl…
For decades, Orchard Towers wasn’t a licensed brothel per se, but its bars and clubs were a gathering ground for freelance sex workers and their customers.
In 2023, the party finally ended – officials refused to renew the entertainment licenses for all nightlife establishments there, which meant effectively shutting down Orchard Towers’ NSFW operations by July 31, 2023.
The closure marked the end of an era and sent a clear signal: outside of the designated vice zones, Singapore is not cool with improvised red-light districts.
Singapore’s Rocky Relationship With Brothels
Believe it or not, Singapore’s history with brothels goes way back – long before the era of air-conditioned mega-malls and sterile streets.
In the colonial days, prostitution was a booming business driven by a massive gender imbalance.
By the late 19th century, Singapore’s population was overwhelmingly male (in 1884 there were about 60,000 Chinese men to just 6,600 Chinese women), and thousands of women were trafficked or lured from abroad to fill the demand.
Chinatown was an infamous ground zero for the trade. Streets like Smith Street, Sago Lane, and Keong Saik Road were lined with brothel shophouses, often three or four stories tall, each packed with women servicing an endless stream of customers and Johns.
Historical accounts paint a grim picture: many prostitutes (the Ah Ku in local parlance) were sold into the trade, subjected to beatings, disease, and abuse. The National Heritage Board bluntly describes a prostitute’s life in colonial Singapore as “horrendous,” noting that some were so desperate they took their own lives to escape.
By 1900, parts of Chinatown had essentially become red light enclaves. Smith Street, for instance, reportedly had 25 brothels at one point – one of them, the notorious No. 65, gained infamy after its madam was stabbed to death trying to stop a customer from fleeing without paying… yikes.
In the early 20th century, authorities oscillated between tolerance and crackdowns. The British colonial administration outlawed European prostitutes in Singapore, but women from China, Japan, India, and elsewhere continued to arrive.
Japanese brothels run by karayuki-san (Japanese women taken overseas for sex work) took things up a notch, especially around Middle Road and Bugis Street.
By 1961, newly independent Singapore introduced the Women’s Charter, which among many progressive measures (like protecting women’s rights in marriage) also aimed to clamp down on vice. The Charter and subsequent laws made pimping and brothel-keeping criminal offenses, leading to police raids that began pushing brothels out of residential areas.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the red-light trade consolidated primarily into a few zones.
Notably, Geylang (which was then a somewhat run-down district on the city’s edge) rose in prominence as a contained vice area, while other older red light areas were phased out.
Keong Saik Road, a bustling brothel street in the 60s, gradually saw sex establishments shuttered as the government cleaned up the Chinatown area. By the early 2000s, Keong Saik had only a handful of brothels left (around 10 or so by 2003) and was well on its way to gentrification…
By the 1990s and 2000s, Singapore’s official red light scene (if you can call it that!) had been effectively corralled into Geylang’s lorongs and a few discreet entertainment complexes.
The Modern Day: Geylang Brothels
The brothels in Geylang are the most famous in Singapore’s adult industry, and together form one of the most notorious red light districts in all of Asia.
If you’re looking for the heart of the action, all roads lead to Geylang, the nation’s one and only officially sanctioned red light district.
The surrounding bars and clubs are a popular place to hookup, but it’s the roaring sex trade that gets the most attention here.
The area is full of Asian prostitutes and migrant sex workers; many coming straight from Thailand, Korea or Cambodia. There’s a large number of Indonesian women too.
Legal brothels are concentrated along a stretch of small lanes off Geylang Road, specifically Lorongs 4 through 20 (lorong means alley or lane in Malay). Stroll down those particular streets in the evening and you’ll notice certain houses with red lanterns, bright neon number signs, or tinted glass windows – telltale signs you’ve found the brothels.
Many operate in what’s called “fish tank” style: a lineup of women sitting behind a glass panel in the front room, visible to patrons who peek in to pick their companion.
Women will line the street wearing heavy makeup and outfits that are almost impossible to confuse with ordinary non-working Singaporean ladies.
If you pick up a hooker here, you will take her back to one of the local brothels, or to a nearby ‘love hotel’.
A love hotel is short-stay accommodation that turns a blind eye to the comings and goings of a prostitute and her clients. The rooms are often small, cramped and — let’s just say — unlikely to appear in a five star review on Trip Advisor.
These brothels are where the working class SG men will buy sex, too.
All brothels and sex houses located in the designated zone south of Geylang Road (from Lorong 2 all the way to Lorong 30) are legal.
The even-numbered Lorongs are the legal brothels.
How The Brothels Work
Inside Geylang’s legal brothels, operations run like clockwork. Each brothel typically caters to a specific nationality or niche.
For example, there’s a well-known cyber-themed house dubbed “Cygon” (a play on Saigon) where all the sex workers are Vietnamese. Just down the lane you might find “Sawadee,” which unsurprisingly features Thai women.
You won’t generally find Singaporean women in these fish tanks; most are from the approved foreign countries.
Prices aren’t usually advertised on billboards (that would be too easy), but they tend to be fixed rates depending on the establishment and the session duration.
Typically, a client will enter the foyer or lounge, scan the lineup of available ladies, make a choice, and be led to a private room. The whole process is designed to be low-key and efficient.
And because these brothels are licensed, they don’t really hustle customers on the street – no one is tugging your sleeve to come in (soliciting outside is illegal anyway). The vibe in Geylang’s lanes can actually be oddly laid-back: a mix of curious tourists, regular local patrons, and migrant workers grabbing a beer or some famous frog porridge nearby, all coexisting with the neon glow of brothel signboards… how very organised.
The Four Floors of Whores
Orchard Towers, situated on the corner of Claymore Road and Orchard Road, holds the notorious nickname: ‘Four Floors of Whores’.
(Although some will shorten it to simply, Four Floors.)
It’s a shopping mall by day that morphed into a multi-story meat market by night, packed with expat-oriented bars where freelance sex workers from all over the world (Russia, Philippines, Thailand, you name it) cruised for clients.
It was never a legal brothel zone, just tolerated chaos. In 2023, Singapore finally lost patience with it. With the closure of Orchard Towers’ nightlife, the freelance scene has scattered.
Some of those workers have possibly moved to online platforms or operate more discreetly in other nightlife spots, but you won’t find another place in Singapore quite like Orchard Towers was… in its heyday, anyway!
Keong Siak Brothels
Keong Siak Road (known as Keong Saik Gai in Chinese) is part of Singapore Chinatown and represents a throwback to how prostitution used to be in SG.
The area was once synonymous with three-storey townhouse brothels that ran along both sides of the narrow street.
These days, most of the brothels are gone — but a couple still remain.
It is said that the last 2 remaining Keong Siak brothels are located either side of the Foong Kee Coffeeshop (House 8 and 6A/B). Inside, the brothels look much the same as they did in the 1960s, representing a nostalgic throwback for any punter who remembers Singapore prostitution prior to Geylang’s takeover of the red light district.
Location of Keong Siak Road:
Massage Parlours and Tui Na Shops
Besides the brothels around Orchard, Geylang and Chinatown, it’s an open secret that many of Singapore’s massage parlours have their own menus of extras and special services: including full sex, handjobs, and oral.
There is a whole sector of ‘Health Centres‘ that provide these services.
Blowjobs and handjobs are the most common extras.
This also goes for many of the Tui Na parlours, which may advertise a perfectly innocuous looking service with talk of ‘rejuvenating massage’… but is often a cover for the main event, which will reveal itself about 20 minutes in to the massage.
When your masseuse’s hands start to stray and she asks you to turn over…
Have you visited a Singapore brothel?
Where did you go, and what did you make of the experience?
