Lift and Elevator Codes and Standards in Cape Verde

Cabo Verde has no dedicated lift safety or inspection law, but its building law sets binding lift rules. Decreto-Lei n.º 18/2011 (legal regime of building) art. 86 requires lifts for persons or goods, escalators and moving walks to be sized to need and to operate safely in full conformity with applicable rules, including those for users with reduced mobility, and requires a traffic study to decide the number and characteristics of lifts; required lifts, goods lifts, escalators or moving walks that cannot be used permanently are fined per apparatus per day. The Código Técnico da Edificação (Portaria conjunta n.º 4/2011, BO of 12 January 2012) art. 37 makes mechanical vertical transport compulsory in buildings with more than four storeys or more than 14 m between usable floors, with a car of at least 1.10 x 1.40 m and a 100 kg goods lift above five floors where no person-carrying goods lift exists; art. 158 repeats the traffic-study rule and says escalators/moving walks steeper than 6% or narrower than 1.00 m are not accessible routes. Decreto-Lei n.º 20/2011 (accessibility technical norms) sets lift landing, door, car, button and stopping-accuracy (max 0.02 m) dimensions. No national lift standard, periodic inspection rule or lift regulator was found; in practice the Instituto Eletrotécnico Português inspected the Banco de Cabo Verde lifts in 2025.

Who regulates lifts

Câmaras municipais (building licensing under DL 18/2011 and Lei n.º 60/VIII/2014); no lift-specific regulator found

Periodic inspection

No legal lift rule found (DL 18/2011 art. 90 only requires general building inspections every five years, with special inspections of specific components by qualified entities); practice: inspection reports by the Instituto Eletrotécnico Português (seen at Banco de Cabo Verde, 2025)

Installer and maintenance licensing

Not found

Laws, codes and standards

Decreto-Lei n.º 18/2011 (2011) — Legal regime of building (edificação)
Mandatory · Decree-law of the Council of Ministers, Boletim Oficial I Série n.º 9 of 28 February 2011; replaces the 1988 Regulamento Geral de Construção e Habitação Urbana (Decreto 130/88) · Conselho de Ministros
Decreto-Lei n.º 20/2011 (2011) — Technical norms on accessibility for persons with disabilities and reduced mobility
Mandatory · Decree-law, Boletim Oficial I Série n.º 9 of 28 February 2011 · Conselho de Ministros
Portaria conjunta n.º 4/2011 (Código Técnico da Edificação) (2011) — Building Technical Code (CTE)
Mandatory · Joint ordinance under DL 18/2011 (art. on the CTE: approved by joint portaria) · Government of Cabo Verde (joint ordinance of the responsible ministers)

Lift associations and bodies

Portuguese Electrotechnical Institute (IEP)

Last verified 2026-10-21. Standards are copyrighted: we list which one applies and its legal status, not its text.