UK Stairlift Regulations and Standards: What the Law Actually Requires

In the UK a stairlift is built to BS EN 81-40:2020 and sold under the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008, not lift law. LOLER and PUWER apply to workplaces and care settings only, not private homes.

Stairlift sellers talk about regulations a lot, and cite them precisely almost never. This page sets out every standard and law that actually applies to a stairlift in the UK. Each one links to its primary source.

Our guide to cancelling a stairlift order sets out how the main companies’ own cancellation terms compare with the law.

It covers the product standard and the machinery legislation stairlifts are sold under. It also covers what applies in a private home, what changes in a care home or workplace, and the consumer law protecting buyers.

Where the law requires nothing, we say so, because the gaps get quoted as often as the rules.

Everything here was checked against the legislation, standard or official guidance named on 2 September 2026. If we have something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

The five instruments that matter, at a glance

The product standard: BS EN 81-40:2020

The standard that governs how a stairlift is designed, built and installed is BS EN 81-40:2020, published by BSI on 30 September 2020. Its full title is Safety rules for the construction and installation of lifts. Special lifts for the transport of persons and goods. Stairlifts and inclined lifting platforms intended for persons with impaired mobility.

Its scope covers the construction, manufacture, installation, maintenance and dismantling of electrically operated stairlifts. It applies to equipment intended for use by one person, directly retained and guided by a guide rail or rails, in three forms: chair stairlifts, standing platforms and wheelchair platforms. The 2020 edition replaced BS EN 81-40:2008, and BSI lists it as current and under review.

Three details worth knowing about this standard:

It is not retrospective. BSI’s scope statement says the standard does not apply to power-operated stairlifts manufactured before its publication. An older machine is judged against the edition in force when it was made, which matters when you are looking at a reconditioned unit.

It carries legal weight through machinery law. EN 81-40:2020 is listed by the European Commission as a harmonised standard under the Machinery Directive, with legal effect from 15 October 2021 (Commission Implementing Decision 2021/1813, Official Journal L 366). Building to it gives a manufacturer a presumption that the machinery meets the essential health and safety requirements. Great Britain keeps its own equivalent list of designated standards for machinery, maintained by the Office for Product Safety and Standards.

BS 5776 is dead. You will still find sellers citing BS 5776:1996, the old British standard for powered stairlifts. The NBS publication index records it as withdrawn, superseded in 2008 by BS EN 81-40. A company quoting BS 5776 as its compliance benchmark is citing a standard that was retired around 18 years ago.

In law, a stairlift is machinery, not a lift

This surprises people. The Lifts Regulations 2016, which govern passenger lifts, do not cover stairlifts at all. Schedule 2 of those regulations, headed Excluded lifts, begins with “lifting appliances whose speed is not greater than 0.15m/s”. Stairlifts sit in that slow-moving class, so they fall outside lift law entirely.

Instead, a stairlift is placed on the market under the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008. Before it can be sold in Great Britain, the manufacturer has several things to do.

It must meet the essential health and safety requirements through risk assessment and design. It must compile technical documentation, draw up a declaration of conformity and affix a conformity marking. Since 1 October 2024, government guidance confirms that either the UKCA or the CE marking is accepted on machinery placed on the GB market.

What that means for a buyer: a new stairlift should carry a UKCA or CE marking, come with a declaration of conformity naming the manufacturer, and come with instructions. If any of those is missing, the product has a paperwork problem before it has a mechanical one. Local authority trading standards services have a duty to enforce these regulations for consumer goods, alongside the Office for Product Safety and Standards.

In your own home: what the law requires, and what it does not

Once a stairlift is installed in a private house, the workplace inspection regimes do not follow it through the door. This is the most misquoted area of stairlift law, so here it is with sources.

LOLER, the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, applies to lifting equipment provided for use at work. HSE’s guide to thorough examination, INDG422, puts the duty on employers, the self-employed and those in control of lifting equipment at work.

PUWER, its sister regulation for work equipment generally, is explicit in HSE guide INDG291. The regulations do not apply to domestic work in a private household. Nor do they apply to equipment used by the public. A privately owned stairlift on your own stairs is neither.

So no statute sets a service interval for a stairlift you own in your own home. Servicing still matters. Manufacturers typically recommend it annually and require it to keep a warranty alive.

But if a seller tells you an annual service is a legal requirement for your own stairlift, they’re wrong. Ask them to cite the regulation. They won’t be able to.

In a private sale, what consumers do have is the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Section 9 requires goods sold by a business to be of satisfactory quality. The Act spells out that this includes fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, safety and durability.

Section 15 fits stairlifts exactly. Where installation forms part of the contract and the trader installs the goods, the goods do not conform to the contract if they are installed incorrectly. So a badly fitted rail counts as a defect in the goods themselves, with the same remedies as if the machine were faulty.

Sales agreed in your home: the 14-day right to cancel

Most stairlifts are sold after a home survey. That makes the contract an off-premises sale under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s Business Companion guidance sets out what follows. The trader must give you specified pre-contract information in a clear form. You then have 14 days to cancel, running from the day after delivery for goods.

The part few buyers know: if the trader fails to tell you about your cancellation right, the cancellation period extends until 14 days after they finally do, up to a maximum of 12 months. A stairlift sold at your kitchen table with no written cancellation notice can be cancellable for a year.

One exclusion matters for curved stairlifts. Regulation 28(1)(b) removes the right to cancel for “the supply of goods that are made to the consumer’s specifications or are clearly personalised”, and a curved rail manufactured to follow your staircase is a strong candidate for that exclusion.

Straight stairlifts are standard equipment, so the exclusion is much harder for a trader to claim. Before signing for a curved lift, ask the company to state in writing whether it treats the contract as cancellable and on what terms. Reputable firms will answer; the answer tells you a lot either way.

Separate from the law, the British Healthcare Trades Association runs a code of practice approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, covering stairlifts and access among its sectors. Members commit to cancellation rights, deposit protection, staff training standards and alternative dispute resolution. The code has held CTSI approval since 2013. It is voluntary, so it binds members only, but it is a reasonable filter when choosing between installers.

Care homes, workplaces and equipment used by staff

All of the above changes once a stairlift is provided for use at work. That covers a care home, a supported living scheme, or any premises where staff operate or rely on the equipment. There, LOLER applies. Because stairlifts carry people, they fall in the stricter category.

Regulation 9 of LOLER requires lifting equipment for lifting persons to be thoroughly examined at least every 6 months. For other lifting equipment the figure is 12 months. Different intervals can apply if a competent person draws up an examination scheme.

A thorough examination is a systematic, detailed examination by a competent person. HSE says that person should be sufficiently independent and impartial to make objective decisions.

PUWER runs alongside it: work equipment must be suitable for its purpose, maintained in a safe condition, and inspected where circumstances require. And where equipment is used mainly by members of the public, HSE’s guidance notes that LOLER duties do not attach but the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 still does, which is the footing a stairlift in a public building sits on.

Landlords sit in between. When a landlord installs a stairlift for a resident as a home adaptation, it isn’t work equipment for the tenant, so LOLER does not apply directly.

Even so, the National Housing Maintenance Forum’s best practice guidance advises social landlords to run a LOLER-equivalent regime: maintenance plus a 6-monthly thorough examination. It treats this as reasonable risk management under section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

That’s why housing association tenants see an examination sticker on a machine the law never strictly required to carry one.

Flats, common stairs and public buildings

Fitting a stairlift to a shared staircase is a different proposition from fitting one inside your own front door, because a shared stair is usually an escape route.

For buildings other than dwellings, the government’s Approved Document M, Volume 2 treats a wheelchair platform stairlift as a last resort: paragraph 3.23 allows one to be considered “in exceptional circumstances in an existing building”, and only “provided its installation does not conflict with requirements for means of escape”. The preferred order is a passenger lift first, a vertical lifting platform second, and a platform stairlift only where neither will go.

In the common parts of a block of flats, the same escape-route question applies, and the freeholder’s consent is needed before anything is fixed to shared fabric. Anyone considering this route should raise it with building control and the fire risk assessor for the block before ordering equipment, not after.

Second-hand and reconditioned stairlifts

Two rules do the work here. First, the standard is not retrospective. A stairlift built in 2010 was built to EN 81-40:2008, and no law requires it to be brought up to the 2020 edition.

Second, the Consumer Rights Act covers used goods sold by a business just as it covers new ones. Satisfactory quality is judged against description, price and circumstances. A reconditioned unit isn’t held to showroom standard. It must still be safe and durable, and correctly installed where the seller fits it.

Practical checks that follow from the paperwork side: a reconditioned stairlift should still carry its original rating plate and conformity marking, and the seller should be able to tell you the machine’s year of manufacture. If you are buying or selling privately instead, our selling a stairlift guide covers how the trade handles used machines.

Who enforces what

Things the law does not require

These points come up constantly in sales conversations, so here is the negative space. Each follows from the sources above.

There is no legal requirement to have a privately owned stairlift serviced annually in your own home. Nor is there any requirement to upgrade an older stairlift to the current standard.

There is no licence or registration scheme for stairlift installers, and anyone may fit one. The law won’t vet the fitter for you. That’s an argument for using the consumer protections and code membership described above.

FAQ

Do stairlifts need a LOLER inspection?

Only where they are provided for use at work, such as in a care home or by an employer or housing provider with control of the equipment. There the interval is at least every 6 months, because the equipment lifts people. LOLER does not apply to a stairlift you own in your own home.

What is the current British Standard for stairlifts?

BS EN 81-40:2020, published 30 September 2020. It replaced BS EN 81-40:2008, which had itself replaced BS 5776:1996 in 2008.

Should a new stairlift have a CE mark or a UKCA mark?

Either is accepted on machinery placed on the Great Britain market under current government guidance. What matters is that a marking is present and the manufacturer has issued a declaration of conformity.

Can I cancel a stairlift contract I signed at home?

Often yes. A contract agreed in your home is an off-premises contract with a 14-day cancellation right, and the period extends by up to 12 months if the trader never told you about it. The exception is goods made to your specifications, which regulation 28 excludes from cancellation, and a made-to-measure curved rail may well fall within that. Get the trader’s cancellation terms in writing before ordering a curved lift.

How to cite this page

Stairlift Guru, “UK stairlift regulations and standards”, stairliftguru.co.uk, checked against primary sources 2 September 2026. You are welcome to quote or reference this page with a link.

Methodology and sources

Every claim on this page was checked against its named primary source on 2 September 2026. For the product standards: BSI’s record for BS EN 81-40:2020, the NBS record of BS 5776:1996’s withdrawal and the Lifts Regulations 2016, Schedule 2.

For machinery law: the OPSS guidance on the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 and the European Commission’s harmonised standards list for machinery. For workplace safety: HSE guides INDG422 and INDG291, and LOLER regulation 9.

For consumer law: sections 9 and 15 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and regulation 28 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. From CTSI: its Business Companion guidance on off-premises sales and the CTSI approved code entry for the BHTA.

For housing and building: the NHMF best practice guidance on lifts and Approved Document M, Volume 2, 2015 edition incorporating 2024 amendments.

The full text of BS EN 81-40:2020 is a paid BSI publication. Statements about its scope come from BSI’s published scope description, and we have not relied on the standard’s body text. This page is general information and isn’t legal advice.