A bargirl is a woman who is paid to entertain patrons in a bar or nightclub. Variants on the term include "B-girl" and "juicy girl". Many bargirls work as a bar hostess, engaging individual customers in conversation. They may also provide them with sexual entertainment such as a lap dance, or offer to sell them sexual services. Some bargirls work as a bar dancer providing more public entertainment, often in the form of an erotic dance, go-go dance or striptease. The exact nature of the entertainment varies widely from place to place, depending on the venue.

Bargirls work in various types of bars throughout the world, including strip clubs and regular bars in the U.S., hostess bars in East Asia, go-go bars and "beer bars" in Southeast Asia, dance bars in India, and boliches in Argentina.

A bar fine is a payment made by a customer to the operators of a bar or nightclub in East and South East Asia that allows a bar girl to leave work early, usually in order to accompany a customer outside for sexual services.

Bargirls often receive a commission on drinks bought by their customers, either a percentage or a fixed amount added to the drink's price. This is frequently a bargirl's main source of income, but other sources of income can include a salary, tips (often the main source of earnings), and a percentage of any bar fine. They may also be given a periodic quota of drinks. Salaries may be increased for bargirls who have more sexual encounters, as they are thought to attract more customers to the bar. Deductions are sometimes made from earnings if the bar provides food and accommodation for the bargirl.

Alcohol has been used as a currency for transactional sex in South Africa, and Uganda.

In Ethiopia in the 1970s, bargirls were common in drinking establishments. Those working in the larger bars were provided with board and lodging and a small salary, in return for their work attracting, serving and entertaining customers. Typically they also provided sexual services to their customers, the terms for which were negotiated separately with the customers. Some bargirls had many sexual encounters, while other restricted their sexual services for specific men.

John M. Chernoff's 2003 book "Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl" recorded the experiences of a bar girl in West Africa in the 1970s. It was awarded the 2004 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing.

Research was carried out in the 1990s into sex work carried out by bar girls in Malawi, where the terms bar girl and prostitute were synonymous. Bar girls were officially employed to serve drinks and clean the bar, but the wages paid for their bar work were low, often lower than the statutory minimum wage, and these were sometimes not paid at all. To supplement their income, most bar girls engaged in commercial sex with the co-operation of the bar owners, who regarded this as an additional means of attracting customers. The bars usually provided the bar girls with rent-free single-room accommodation, which served as a venue for sexual encounters with clients. The bar patrons were typically men unaccompanied by wives or girlfriends. They were mostly in salaried employment, for example as international hauliers. Although prostitution in Malawi is illegal, police action was mostly taken against street prostitutes rather than bar girls, as the latter were not considered to be soliciting. Most bar girls, frequently in desperate need for money, engaged in survival sex out of economic necessity. This was a major reason for their persisting in sex work. Screening carried out at the time indicated that about 80 per cent of bargirls carried the HIV virus.