How many lifts in Spain depend on 2G? The verified figures

Spain runs the largest lift fleet in Europe, and its 2G networks are being switched off. The question that matters to building managers, maintenance firms and reporters is simple: how many lifts still depend on 2G for their emergency telephone? The honest answer is that nobody has published a figure with a verifiable source, and it is worth explaining why before quoting any number.

The "500,000 lifts on 2G" figure has no primary source

Since December 2025 the Spanish press has repeated that between 550.000-600.000 lifts run exclusively on 2G modules. Tracing the figure back, the citation chain ends at a single article that credits it to unnamed industry estimates:

No FEEDA, operator or ministry publication supports that specific figure, and we found no instance of it before 29 December 2025. The same applies to the derived claim of 800.000 lifts with mobile emergency lines.

That does not make the figure wrong. It makes it uncitable as data today: a sector estimate with no published methodology. Anyone using it should say exactly that.

What is documented: the installed base

FEEDA publishes two different series with different methodologies, and press coverage tends to merge them. They should be cited separately.

The second figure is 36.022 units lower than the first despite being published later, because the RAEs report is an administrative count compiled with the regional industry departments while the statistical report is an economic study of the sector. They are not comparable. FEEDA also notes that only 30 % of regions supplied standardised data for the RAEs report, and that Albacete, Cáceres, Badajoz and Ceuta were missing that year.

About 50 % of the fleet is more than twenty years old, which is the figure that actually matters for connectivity: the units installed over the past decade or so are the ones carrying GSM modules.

Breakdown by region

Those four regions hold 743.805 lifts, roughly 62 % of the national fleet on the RAEs 2024 series. Any zone-by-zone shutdown concentrates most of its impact there.

What Spanish regulation actually requires

Here is a detail almost all coverage misses. The Real Decreto 355/2024 (ITC AEM 1) (BOE-A-2024-7258), in force since 1 July 2024, requires every lift without bidirectional communication to fit a device that lets a trapped passenger call a rescue centre at any time, within one year of the first periodic inspection that finds it missing.

However: the literal string "81-28" does not appearin the consolidated ITC AEM 1 text. The standard it does name, for the device's accessibility requirements, is UNE EN 81-70+A1. EN 81-28 is the European harmonised reference for remote alarms and describes precisely the functional requirement the regulation imposes, but saying "ITC AEM 1 requires EN 81-28" is imprecise. The accurate statement is that it imposes the functional obligation EN 81-28 governs.

EN 81-28 itself requires, among other things:

• bidirectional voice communication between car and rescue centre;
• activation through a single action by the trapped passenger;
• a redundant communication path;
• an automatic self-test at least every three days, over the same channel a real alarm would use, raising a fault alert within one hour.

That self-test is why a 2G shutdown is not a problem discovered on the day of the cut: a lift whose line stops working should start raising fault alerts within seventy-two hours.

What the Spanish operators have actually said

There is no binding national date.Spain's Ministry for Digital Transformation opened a public consultation on 17 December 2025, running to 20 January 2026, precisely to define per-operator and per-technology timetables. It explicitly names the impact on eCall, alarm systems and lifts. As of August 2026 there is still no single mandate.

The practical consequence is that a given lift's exposure depends on its SIM's operator, not on a national date. A building whose module sits on a network switching off in 2027 and an identical one on a network keeping 2G to 2030 are three years apart.

eCall: two European instruments that are not the same thing

Coverage of the shutdown delay tends to merge two separate things. The distinction matters because one is binding and the other is not.

• A European Commission study (LS Telcom), published 28 May 2026. It estimates that up to 64.000.000 vehicles could lose eCall functionality and recommends preserving at least one circuit-switched network per country until 2030. It is a technical recommendation and is not binding. European Commission
• A Delegated Regulation on eCall technical standards, signed 14 February 2024. This one is binding and sets its own timetable: voluntary use of the new standard from January 2025, mandatory for new type approvals from January 2026, and from January 2027 circuit-switched type approvals cease to be valid. Council of the EU

Put plainly: Europe has not banned switching off 2G. It has recommended coordination, and separately required new cars to stop depending on it.

If you manage lifts

• Ask your maintenance provider which operator the SIM is on, not just which technology. Knowing the module is 2G does not tell you when it stops working. The operator does.
• Check the self-test alerts. If the equipment meets EN 81-28 it is already testing the line every three days, and that log is the first real indicator of exposure.
• Prioritise by region and by age. The 50 % of the fleet over twenty years old is where GSM modules concentrate.
• When replacing, avoid single-operator SIMs. A module tied to one network repeats the problem at the next shutdown. A multi-carrier SIM changes network without changing hardware.

Method and sources

Every figure on this page was verified on 8 August 2026 against the source linked beside it. Where a number circulates without a locatable primary source, this page says so rather than repeating it. Two common claims are excluded for that reason: the 550.000-600.000 range of lifts on 2G, and the frequently repeated claim that Spain has more lifts per capita than any other country, for which we found no citable international comparative study.

If you hold primary data on how many lifts in Spain use mobile emergency lines, get in touch and we will update this page citing the source.