How Often Do Lifts Need to Be Serviced in Australia?

How often should each type of lift be serviced?

Service frequency comes down to two things: how heavily the lift is used, and what the manufacturer and the relevant standard require. A lightly used home lift and a lift carrying hundreds of passengers a day in an office tower are not on the same schedule.

• Home and residential lifts — typically serviced once or twice a year. A single-household lift covered by AS/NZS 1735.18:2002 does light duty, so an annual or six-monthly visit is usually enough to keep it running and keep the warranty valid.
• Commercial passenger lifts — usually serviced monthly to quarterly. Higher traffic, public safety obligations, and duty of care under Work Health and Safety law push the interval shorter. A busy lift in a hospital or shopping centre may be on a monthly contract.
• Goods and freight lifts — commonly quarterly, or on a duty-based schedule tied to load cycles. Heavy loads accelerate wear on ropes, guides, and doors.

Your lift company sets the exact interval in the lift maintenance contract, based on the manufacturer's schedule and how the lift is actually used.

Servicing versus statutory inspection — they are not the same

Routine servicing and statutory inspection are two different activities, and confusing them is the most common mistake building owners make.

Servicing is preventive maintenance carried out by your lift maintenance provider — lubrication, adjustment, testing of safety devices, and replacing worn parts before they fail. It happens on the interval set in your service contract.

A statutory inspection is a separate, independent assessment of the lift against its registered design and the relevant standard. It is usually carried out annually by a competent person who is independent of the day-to-day servicing. The scope and cost sit apart from your maintenance contract — see our guide to lift inspection cost for what to budget.

In short: a service keeps the lift healthy; an inspection verifies that it is compliant and safe. A well-run building needs both.

Is lift servicing a legal requirement?

For lifts in workplaces and shared buildings, the answer is effectively yes. Lifts are registrable plant under the Model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations, and the person conducting a business or undertaking — usually the building owner or managing body — has a duty to keep plant safe and properly maintained. Letting servicing lapse breaches that duty.

Victoria is the exception. It did not adopt the model WHS laws and operates under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and OHS Regulations 2017 — but the practical obligation to maintain lifts is the same. Whichever state you are in, service intervals and maintenance records are how you demonstrate the lift has been kept safe.

The AS 1735 series of Australian Standards sets the framework for lift design, maintenance, and inspection. For what regular servicing costs and what a contract should include, see lift maintenance cost.

What happens when servicing is skipped

Neglected lifts fail in predictable ways. Worn ropes and sheaves, dry guide rails, drifting door timing, and degraded safety devices all develop gradually, then cause a breakdown at the worst moment. The immediate cost is downtime and emergency callout fees, which run far higher than a scheduled visit.

The longer-term costs are worse. An out-of-service lift in an apartment block or aged-care facility strands residents. A safety device that has not been tested can fail when it is needed most. If an incident occurs on a lift with no maintenance records, the building owner is exposed under WHS or OHS law. Missed servicing can also void the manufacturer's warranty, turning a covered repair into an out-of-pocket one.

For commercial buildings, uptime alone makes the business case — see commercial lifts for how service levels are specified.

How to set the right service interval

Start with the manufacturer's recommended schedule, then adjust for real-world use:

• Traffic — more passengers or heavier loads mean shorter intervals.
• Environment — coastal, dusty, or outdoor installations wear faster.
• Criticality — a hospital or single-lift building needs tighter servicing than a lift with a redundant twin.
• Age — older lifts and those nearing modernisation often need more frequent attention.

As of Q2 2026, most Australian maintenance contracts are structured as comprehensive (parts and labour included) or non-comprehensive (labour only). The interval — monthly, quarterly, six-monthly, or annual — is set in that contract.

Not sure whether your lift is on the right schedule, or paying too much for the wrong contract? Get free quotes from qualified Australian lift companies and compare service intervals, inclusions, and price.