Solicitation of prostitution — knowingly offering or agreeing to pay a fee for sexual conduct — is a state jail felony under Texas Penal Code § 43.021, punishable by 180 days to 2 years in a state jail and a fine up to $10,000. A prior conviction raises it to a third-degree felony; soliciting a minor makes it second-degree.
Below: the statute text, the full punishment table, how undercover sting cases are actually proved, the defense strategies that work, and practice notes for Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant County.
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Published 2026-06-11 · Reviewed by Reggie London and Njeri London, Co-Founding Partners · Last reviewed: 2026-06-11
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Controlling statute:Texas Penal Code § 43.021 Classification: State jail felony; third-degree felony with a qualifying prior; second-degree felony if a minor is solicited, represented, or believed to be involved Punishment range: 180 days to 2 years in a state jail and a fine up to $10,000 for the base offense; 2 to 10 years in prison for the enhanced third-degree version; 2 to 20 years for the second-degree version involving a minor
What Is Solicitation of Prostitution Under Texas Law?
Under Texas Penal Code § 43.021(a), a person commits solicitation of prostitution if the person "knowingly offers or agrees to pay a fee to another person for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct with that person or another." This is the buyer-side offense — it targets the person offering money, not the person offering sex. The seller-side offense remains in Penal Code § 43.02, which is graded as a Class B misdemeanor for a first offense.
The operative terms are defined in Penal Code § 43.01. A "fee" means "the payment or offer of payment in the form of money, goods, services, or other benefit" — cash is not required, and a promise of payment is enough. "Sexual conduct" includes deviate sexual intercourse, sexual contact, and sexual intercourse. Put together, the statute reaches a wide band of conduct: a text message proposing money for a sex act, a spoken agreement in a parked car, or a hotel-room negotiation that never gets past words.
Section 43.021 is young by Penal Code standards. House Bill 1540 — the 87th Legislature's omnibus human-trafficking bill — pulled the buyer-side offense out of the old § 43.02(b) and re-enacted it as a standalone felony effective September 1, 2021. With that change Texas became the first state in the country to make a first-offense purchase of sex a felony. Before the change, first-offense solicitation was a Class B misdemeanor; today the lowest possible grade is a state jail felony. Anyone relying on pre-2021 advice — or pre-2021 internet posts — about how these cases resolve is working from a different statute.
What Are the Penalties for Solicitation of Prostitution in Texas?
The grade turns on criminal history, the age the other person was — or claimed to be, or was believed to be — and, since 2023, where the offense happened. The full punishment grid:
Version of the offense
Classification
Confinement range
Maximum fine
Base offense — first solicitation charge
State jail felony
180 days to 2 years in a state jail facility (Penal Code § 12.35)
$10,000
Prior conviction under § 43.021 or the former § 43.02(b)
Third-degree felony
2 to 10 years in prison (Penal Code § 12.34)
$10,000
Person solicited is under 18, represented as under 18, or believed to be under 18
Second-degree felony
2 to 20 years in prison (Penal Code § 12.33)
$10,000
Subsection (b-1): offense within 1,000 feet of a school, school function, or UIL event
Bumped to the next-higher category
Range of the elevated grade applies
$10,000
Last reviewed
2026-06-11
Sources: Penal Code §§ 43.021, 12.33–12.35
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Three features of this grid trap people who assume the statute works like other penal provisions. First, the second-degree minor variant is strict liability as to true age — § 43.021(b)(2)(A) applies "regardless of whether the actor knows the age of the person at the time of the offense." Second, the "represented as" and "believed to be" prongs in (b)(2)(B) and (C) mean a decoy profile claiming to be 17 supports the second-degree charge even though no minor ever existed. Third, § 43.021(c) lets the State use a prior case for enhancement even where that case ended in deferred adjudication rather than conviction — one of the few places in the Penal Code where a successfully completed deferred still counts against you.
The state-jail grade also carries a quirk that matters at the negotiating table: under Penal Code § 12.44(a), a judge may punish a state jail felony as a Class A misdemeanor, and under § 12.44(b) the prosecutor can consent to prosecuting it as a Class A misdemeanor outright. In a first-offense sting case with no aggravating facts, § 12.44 is frequently the difference between a felony record and a misdemeanor one. See our Texas punishment ranges guide for how these grades compare across the code.
Elements the State Must Prove
To convict under § 43.021, the State must prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. Knowingly
The culpable mental state under Penal Code § 6.03(b) — awareness of the nature of the conduct. Genuine confusion about what was being discussed, language barriers, or coded messages the defendant did not understand all attack this element.
2. Offers or agrees to pay
Either mode is enough, and the agreement need not be spoken. In Sohrab Mehdi v. the State of Texas, No. 01-24-00279-CR (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Apr 29, 2025), the court held that non-verbal conduct — nodding in response to explicit terms, together with the surrounding circumstances — could support a finding that the defendant agreed to pay a fee for sexual conduct.
3. A fee
"Payment or offer of payment in the form of money, goods, services, or other benefit" under § 43.01. The State does not have to show money changed hands; Mehdi reaffirmed that no specific price negotiation and no completed exchange are required.
4. For the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct
The fee must be tied to deviate sexual intercourse, sexual contact, or sexual intercourse as defined in § 43.01. Payments for companionship, dances, massage, or time — without the sexual-conduct quid pro quo — do not satisfy this element, which is why ambiguous-language fights dominate these trials.
5. With that person or another
The statute covers paying for sexual conduct with the person solicited or with a third person — so negotiating with an intermediary is still solicitation.
How Do Prosecutors Prove Solicitation of Prostitution?
Almost every § 43.021 case in North Texas comes out of a planned operation rather than a citizen complaint. The fact pattern repeats: a decoy advertisement posted on a classified or escort-style platform, a text or chat thread negotiating services and price in coded language, a hotel room or parking lot wired for audio and video, and a takedown team that arrests the buyer on arrival. The State's file typically contains the ad itself, the full message thread extracted from the officer's phone, the recordings, and the arresting officers' reports. Marked money is a bonus for the prosecution, not a requirement.
Mehdi shows how little additional evidence the State needs once context is established. The court affirmed a solicitation conviction arising from an illicit-massage-parlor operation where the defendant claimed his $100 was for a massage only: circumstantial evidence is as probative as direct evidence, the factfinder may resolve conflicting inferences against the defendant, and a nod plus physical conduct can constitute the agreement. The practical lesson runs in both directions — prosecutors lean hard on context, and the defense wins by attacking what the context actually shows about each discrete element.
A hypothetical illustrates the charging line. Suppose a man responds to an online ad offering "companionship," agrees by text to a price for an hour, and asks no further questions; at the door, the decoy raises explicit services for the first time and he says nothing before officers enter. Whether he "agreed to pay a fee for sexual conduct" — as opposed to agreeing to pay for time and then standing silent — is exactly the kind of inference fight Mehdi describes, and exactly where defense cross-examination of the thread's actual words earns acquittals. This example is hypothetical, not a description of any client's case.
What Defenses Work Against a Solicitation of Prostitution Charge?
L and L Law Group builds § 43.021 defenses around the statute's own language and the way stings are actually run:
Entrapment — Penal Code § 8.06. Under England v. State, 887 S.W.2d 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994), § 8.06 codifies a mixed subjective/objective test: the accused must show he was actually induced by law enforcement, and the persuasion used must be the kind likely to cause an ordinarily law-abiding person of average resistance to commit the offense. The statute itself draws the critical line — "[c]onduct merely affording an opportunity to commit an offense does not constitute entrapment." A decoy ad sitting on a website is opportunity. Repeated re-initiation after refusals, manufactured sympathy, or escalating pressure from the decoy can move a case across the line, which is why the full unedited message thread matters so much.
No agreement. The thread may show a unilateral pitch by the decoy that was never accepted, an ambiguous reply, or a defendant who left before terms existed. The State must prove an offer or agreement by the defendant — not mere presence at a sting location.
No fee tied to sexual conduct. Where money is referenced for time, a massage, a dance, or a date, the quid pro quo element is contestable. The defense forces the State to show the payment was for sexual conduct as § 43.01 defines it, not for something lawful.
Mental state. Coded slang the defendant plausibly did not decode, language barriers, and intoxication-clouded exchanges undermine "knowingly."
Identity in text-based stings. Shared phones, spoofed numbers, and borrowed accounts create reasonable doubt about who typed the messages — these cases are built on digital artifacts, and digital artifacts can be attacked.
Suppression. An unlawful detention, a warrantless phone search, or recording problems can support exclusion under Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.23, Texas's statutory exclusionary rule. When the thread or the recording goes out, most solicitation cases go with it.
One more hypothetical, because the entrapment line confuses people: a decoy who posts an ad and answers questions has merely offered an opportunity — no entrapment, even though the entire scenario was fictional. A decoy who, after three refusals, claims she will be evicted tonight unless the target agrees raises a genuine § 8.06 submission question under England. The defense is rare, but it is statutory, and juries are instructed on it when the evidence supports it. Again, these are illustrations, not client cases.
Can a Solicitation of Prostitution Charge Be Dismissed or Expunged?
Yes — and the route chosen at the front of the case controls what record relief exists at the back. Several North Texas district attorney offices operate pretrial-diversion or first-offender tracks for non-aggravated solicitation cases; admission is discretionary, varies by county, and typically requires classes, fees, and a clean term. A completed diversion usually ends in dismissal, which opens the door to expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A. An acquittal or grand-jury no-bill does the same. See our expunction guide and the Texas expunction & non-disclosure master guide.
Deferred adjudication is available for § 43.021 — the statute's own enhancement subsection presupposes it — and a successfully completed felony deferred can later support a petition for an order of nondisclosure under Government Code § 411.0725, subject to the waiting period and the disqualifiers in § 411.074. But two cautions: a deferred is never expunction-eligible, and under § 43.021(c) the deferred still counts as a prior that elevates any future solicitation charge to a third-degree felony. Read our non-disclosure eligibility page before assuming sealing is automatic; it is not.
Where dismissal is not on the table, Penal Code § 12.44 remains the workhorse: misdemeanor-level punishment under § 12.44(a), or misdemeanor prosecution with State consent under § 12.44(b). Which lever is realistic depends on the county, the operation, and the file — which is why the county notes below matter.
What Happens After a Solicitation Arrest in North Texas?
The case follows the standard Texas felony track, with a few wrinkles specific to sting operations:
Arrest and booking. Buyers are usually arrested at the operation site. Phones are seized as evidence; vehicles driven to the scene are frequently towed and may be reviewed for civil forfeiture (more on that below).
Magistration. Within roughly 48 hours, a magistrate gives statutory warnings and sets bail under Code of Criminal Procedure article 15.17. Solicitation bonds in DFW counties are routinely attainable for first offenses; conditions can include no-contact and geographic restrictions. See bond conditions in Texas.
Indictment. Because every § 43.021 case is a felony, it must be presented to a grand jury unless indictment is waived. This is a post-2021 sea change: the same conduct that once produced a county-court misdemeanor now produces a district-court felony file. The grand-jury stage is also a genuine opportunity — a defense packet can ask for a no-bill or a reduction.
Pretrial. Discovery under the Michael Morton Act (Code of Criminal Procedure article 39.14) produces the ad, the thread, the recordings, and the operation plan. Suppression motions, entrapment workups, and diversion negotiations happen here. Most cases resolve in this window.
Resolution. Dismissal, diversion, deferred adjudication, a § 12.44 misdemeanor outcome, a straight plea, or trial. The right endpoint depends on the record-relief plan, not just the immediate punishment.
County-by-County Practice Notes
Collin County. Felony solicitation cases are indicted and heard in the district courts at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney. Frisco, Plano, and McKinney police departments run periodic demand-suppression operations, often hotel-based with regional task-force participation. Collin juries and prosecutors take the minor-variant allegations especially seriously; charge-grade negotiation happens early or not at all.
Dallas County. Cases are heard at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas. Dallas operations tend to be larger and multi-agency, sometimes generating dozens of arrests in a single sweep, and the volume means the district attorney's office processes solicitation files on established tracks — which can cut both ways: predictable offers, but less individual attention unless the defense forces it.
Tarrant County. Felony cases run through the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth. Tarrant practice is paper-driven: a well-documented mitigation and suppression packet filed before the first substantive setting tends to move outcomes more than oral advocacy at the bench.
Denton County. Cases are heard at the Denton County Courts Building in Denton, with operations historically clustered along the I-35E corridor. Denton's smaller felony dockets mean prosecutors generally know their files; unprepared defense walk-ins get unprepared results.
These are general practice observations from defending cases across the region — every case and every court is different. The firm defends all four counties from its single office at 5899 Preston Rd, Suite 101, Frisco.
Collateral Consequences of a Solicitation Conviction
Because § 43.021 is always a felony, the collateral fallout starts at conviction regardless of grade:
Firearms. A felony conviction triggers Penal Code § 46.04's possession restrictions and the federal lifetime ban under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) — yes, even for the state-jail grade, because the offense is punishable by more than a year.
Sex-offender registration. Only the second-degree minor variant is a reportable offense, under Code of Criminal Procedure article 62.001(5)(B-1). The adult-variant state jail felony and the enhanced third-degree felony do not themselves require registration — a distinction worth fighting for at the charging stage.
Vehicle forfeiture. Code of Criminal Procedure article 59.01(2) defines "contraband" to include property used in the commission of any felony under Chapter 43 of the Penal Code. Since every solicitation offense is a Chapter 43 felony, a vehicle driven to the sting can be seized for civil forfeiture — a parallel civil case with its own deadlines that many defendants discover only when the tow yard will not release the car.
Immigration. Prostitution-related convictions carry serious immigration exposure; noncitizens need immigration-specific advice before accepting any plea, including deferred adjudication.
Employment and licensing. A felony record surfaces on background checks, and licensing agencies evaluate convictions under Occupations Code chapter 53. Teachers, nurses, security-license holders, and commercial drivers face agency review on top of the criminal case.
Publicity. Agencies in DFW routinely publicize sting arrests by name before any conviction. Managing the record — and pursuing expunction when the case ends well — is part of the defense, not an afterthought.
How Solicitation Differs From Related Texas Offenses
Chapter 43 and its neighbors slice commercial-sex conduct into distinct offenses, and charge selection drives the stakes:
Prostitution — § 43.02: the seller-side offense, a Class B misdemeanor for a first offense. Since the 2021 split, the buyer and seller in the same exchange face radically different grades — felony versus misdemeanor.
Promotion of prostitution — §§ 43.03, 43.04: third parties who receive money from or manage prostitution activity; aggravated promotion targets enterprises of two or more.
Compelling prostitution — § 43.05: causing another to commit prostitution by force, threat, fraud, or coercion, or any minor to do so — a first-degree-level offense in minor cases.
Online solicitation of a minor — § 33.021: sexually explicit communication with, or solicitation of, a minor over the internet — charged instead of or alongside § 43.021 when the decoy posed as a minor online.
Sex trafficking — § 20A.02: trafficking a person into commercial sexual activity; buyer conduct can be swept into trafficking counts where the State alleges knowledge of trafficking circumstances.
The distinctions matter most when the decoy claimed to be a minor: the same thread can be charged under § 43.021(b)(2) (second-degree), § 33.021 (second or third-degree), or both, and the registration and punishment consequences differ sharply by route. Sorting that out is week-one defense work.
Key Legal Terms
Solicitation of Prostitution (§ 43.021)
Knowingly offering or agreeing to pay a fee to another person for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct with that person or another; a state jail felony created by HB 1540 effective September 1, 2021.
Fee (§ 43.01)
The payment or offer of payment in the form of money, goods, services, or other benefit — payment never has to be completed for the offense to exist.
Sexual Conduct (§ 43.01)
Includes deviate sexual intercourse, sexual contact, and sexual intercourse; the fee must be tied to one of these for the charge to hold.
State Jail Felony
The lowest Texas felony grade: 180 days to 2 years in a state jail facility and up to a $10,000 fine, with § 12.44 misdemeanor-punishment options in appropriate cases.
Entrapment (§ 8.06)
A statutory defense where law enforcement induced the offense using persuasion likely to cause an ordinarily law-abiding person to commit it; merely affording an opportunity is not entrapment.
Demand-Suppression Operation
Law-enforcement shorthand for buyer-side stings: decoy advertisements and undercover officers used to arrest would-be purchasers rather than sellers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is soliciting a prostitute a felony in Texas?
Yes. Since September 1, 2021, every solicitation-of-prostitution charge in Texas is filed as a felony. House Bill 1540 moved the buyer-side offense into Penal Code § 43.021 and set the first offense at the state jail felony level — 180 days to 2 years in a state jail facility and a fine up to $10,000.
Can I be convicted if no sex act happened and no money changed hands?
Yes. The offense is complete the moment a person knowingly offers or agrees to pay a fee for sexual conduct — nothing further has to occur. Texas courts have affirmed convictions where no specific price was negotiated and no money was exchanged; the State only has to prove the offer or agreement itself.
What if the person I texted was actually an undercover officer?
An undercover decoy does not defeat the charge. Section 43.021 punishes the offer or agreement to pay, so it does not matter that the “provider” was a police officer and that no sexual conduct could ever have occurred. The decoy's identity matters for a different reason: it opens the door to scrutinizing how the operation was run and whether entrapment or suppression issues exist.
Is entrapment a defense to a prostitution sting in Texas?
Sometimes — but only when police conduct crossed from opportunity into persuasion. Under Penal Code § 8.06 and England v. State, 887 S.W.2d 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994), the accused must show actual inducement, and the tactics must be ones likely to cause an ordinarily law-abiding person of average resistance to commit the offense. A decoy ad that simply offers the chance to commit the crime is not entrapment.
What punishment does a first-offense solicitation charge carry?
A first offense is a state jail felony: 180 days to 2 years in a state jail facility and a fine up to $10,000 under Penal Code § 12.35. Community supervision and deferred adjudication are available in many cases, and § 12.44 gives courts and prosecutors a path to misdemeanor-level punishment for a state jail felony in appropriate cases.
Why is the charge a second-degree felony when no real minor was involved?
Because the statute reaches fictitious minors. Section 43.021(b)(2) makes the offense a second-degree felony if the person solicited is younger than 18 — regardless of whether the actor knew the age — or was represented to the actor as younger than 18, or was believed by the actor to be younger than 18. A decoy profile that claimed to be 17 satisfies the “represented” prong even though no minor ever existed.
Will I have to register as a sex offender for solicitation of prostitution?
Not for the adult-variant offense. Code of Criminal Procedure article 62.001(5)(B-1) makes solicitation of prostitution a reportable offense only when it is punishable as a second-degree felony — that is, when the State alleges a minor was solicited, represented, or believed to be involved. A state jail felony or third-degree felony conviction under § 43.021 does not itself trigger registration.
Can a solicitation of prostitution charge be expunged in Texas?
Only if the case ends without a conviction. An acquittal, a no-bill by the grand jury, or a dismissal can support an expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A after any applicable waiting period. A successfully completed deferred adjudication is not expunction-eligible, but a petition for an order of nondisclosure under Government Code § 411.0725 may be available, subject to the disqualifiers in § 411.074.
Does an old deferred adjudication count as a prior for enhancement?
Yes. Section 43.021(c) expressly allows a previous offense to be used for enhancement even when the earlier case ended in deferred adjudication rather than a conviction. That makes the first case far more consequential than many people assume: resolving it by deferred adjudication still arms the State with a third-degree-felony enhancement if there is ever a second arrest.
England v. State, 887 S.W.2d 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994); Sohrab Mehdi v. the State of Texas, No. 01-24-00279-CR (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Apr 29, 2025)
Reggie London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on federal criminal defense, complex felony defense, and TEA/SBEC matters. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
Njeri London co-founded L and L Law Group with a focus on DWI defense, family violence cases, and juvenile defense. Licensed in Texas, admitted to TXND and TXED.
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