Stairlift vs home lift · 385 published UK prices · captured August 2026
The median new straight stairlift is advertised at £1,995. The median through-floor home lift is advertised at £16,000, eight times as much. Add ten years of servicing and the gap is about £3,500 against £20,000. If the person can move safely onto a seat and the stairs will take a rail, a stairlift does the job for a fraction of the money. If they cannot, a home lift is the only one of the two that works.
The short answer
- Choose a stairlift if the user can sit on a moving seat safely, the stairs are usable and one flight is the problem. New straight lifts have a median published price of £1,995, curved £4,395, and reconditioned straight lifts £1,595.
- Choose a home lift if the user needs to stay in a wheelchair, a carer has to travel with them, or the stairs cannot take a rail. Published wheelchair through-floor lifts start at £15,500 to £16,000.
- Rent a stairlift if the need is short, such as recovery after an operation. No home lift seller in our dataset publishes a rental price.
- Over 60 and paying VAT yourself? HMRC lists stairlifts for the 5% reduced rate and does not list home lifts, so on the median prices that is about £100 of VAT against £3,200.
Which suits you: our call for eight common situations
Find the row closest to your household. The prices are medians or published starting prices from the two datasets described at the foot of this page.
| Your situation | Our call | Why | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Can transfer to a seat, one straight flight | Straight stairlift | The cheapest route that fully solves the problem, and it bolts to the treads with no building work. | £1,995 median new, £1,595 median reconditioned |
| Can transfer to a seat, stairs turn or have a landing | Curved stairlift | A made-to-measure rail costs about 2.2 times a straight one, but still sits £11,605 below the median through-floor lift. | £4,395 median new |
| Needs help for a few months, for example after surgery | Rent a stairlift | Published rental deals include fitting and, in several cases, servicing and removal. | £245 to £1,300 upfront, then £10.38 a week to £80 a month |
| Needs to stay in a wheelchair between floors | Home lift | A stairlift has a seat and no room for the chair, so the user has to transfer. | Wheelchair through-floor lifts published from £15,500 to £16,000 |
| A carer must travel with the user | Home lift | A stairlift seats one person. Larger through-floor cabins are sold for a wheelchair user and carer. | From £16,000 (1st Choice, wheelchair plus carer) |
| Stairs are unusable, or must stay completely clear | Home lift | It does not use the stairs at all. It needs floor space on both levels and an opening cut in the ceiling. | £16,000 median through-floor, £12,000 to £22,000 published |
| Condition likely to lead to a wheelchair later | Get an occupational therapy assessment before buying either | A stairlift bought now does not carry over to wheelchair use, so the cheaper purchase can become a double purchase. | Assessment is arranged through the council, which also handles grants |
| Unsteady on the stairs but still managing them | Probably neither yet | Rails and minor adaptations costing £1,000 or less are provided free by councils in England. | Free under £1,000 (Care and Support charging regulations, regulation 3) |
Rental prices from the Stairlift Costs tracker (Rental Stairlifts, Age UK Mobility and four others). Wheelchair lift prices: Morgan Ellis (Stiltz wheelchair version from £15,500), My Mobility UK (Stiltz Trio+ £16,000 including VAT) and 1st Choice Home Lifts.
Not sure? Answer five questions
The tool below weighs your answers and points to the better fit. It is general guidance, and a proper assessment of the person and the house comes first.
What each one costs: price, ten years of servicing, VAT and grants
Every figure in this table is either a published price or plain arithmetic on one. Batteries, repairs and electricity are left out on both sides, because home lift sellers do not publish them, so the ten-year column compares like with like.
| Straight stairlift | Curved stairlift | Through-floor home lift | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median published price, new | £1,995 | £4,395 | £16,000 |
| Published range, new | £1,350 to £5,561 | £2,695 to £10,000 | £12,000 to £22,000 |
| Prices behind the median | 73 new stairlift prices for 17 brands from 25 sellers | 24 prices from 12 sellers | |
| Annual service | £150 typical; published from £95 | £150 typical | £400 typical; published £195 to £750 |
| Price plus ten annual services | £3,495 | £5,895 | £20,000 |
| VAT if you are disabled | Zero-rated | Zero-rated | Zero-rated |
| VAT if you are over 60 and not disabled | 5%, about £100 on the median | 5%, about £220 on the median | 20%, £3,200 on the median |
| Share of the £30,000 England DFG maximum | 7% | 15% | 53% |
| Weeks of self-funded residential care the price equals | 1.5 | 3.4 | 12.3 |
| Rental | Published by at least six sellers | Published (1st Choice, from £2,000 plus £100 a month) | No published price found |
| Removal | £0 to £600 (Halton) | £0 to £600 (Halton) | No published price found |
| What you get back | TK Home Solutions buy-back: £50 to £100 within two years | TK Home Solutions buy-back: £100 to £200 within two years | Used lifts advertised at £1,500 to £10,950 |
Stairlift medians and ranges: UK Stairlift Price Tracker (Stairlift Costs, captured 20 August, re-checked 31 August 2026). Stairlift servicing: Stairlift Running Costs Report 2026 (£100 to £200, typical £150); from-£95 prices published by Prestige Stairlifts and Dolphin Stairlifts. Home lift prices and servicing: UK Home Lift Price Tracker (captured 20 August 2026); the £400 is the median midpoint of six published servicing ranges. VAT: HMRC VAT Notice 701/7, sections 4.3, 6.5 and 9. DFG maximum: GOV.UK. Care: £1,298 a week, the self-funder residential average used in our cost of care comparison.
1. Can the person move safely onto a seat?
Answer this one before looking at prices. A stairlift carries one seated passenger, so the user has to get from a wheelchair or walking frame onto the seat at the bottom, and off again at the top. If that transfer is unsafe now, or is likely to become unsafe, a stairlift is the wrong purchase at any price.
A through-floor home lift carries the user standing, sitting or in a wheelchair, depending on the cabin. Wheelchair models are published from £15,500 (Morgan Ellis, for a Stiltz wheelchair version) and £16,000 (My Mobility UK, for the Stiltz Trio+, including VAT). See our guide to wheelchair home lifts for the models.
2. What are the stairs like?
A straight flight is the cheapest case for a stairlift by a wide margin. Curved, turning and split-landing stairs need a rail made for that staircase, and the median published price rises from £1,995 to £4,395. That is still £11,605 below the median through-floor lift, so on cost alone a curved staircase is no reason to choose a home lift.
What does tip it is a staircase that cannot be used at all, or one that other people in the house need clear. A stairlift folds up at the end of the flight, but the rail stays on the stairs. A home lift leaves them untouched and takes floor space instead: Lifton gives its DUO as 1,040 by 760 mm including rails, and Aritco gives its HomeLift Compact as 840 by 880 mm outside. Our home lift comparison table lists the published sizes for twelve models.
3. How long is it needed?
For a need measured in months, renting a stairlift is usually the cheapest route. Published rental deals run from £245 upfront then £10.38 a week (Rental Stairlifts, Brooks straight) to around £1,300 upfront then from £80 a month from month seven (Age UK Mobility). Stairlift Costs puts the break-even against buying a reconditioned lift at about 18 months once running costs are counted.
We found no published rental price for a home lift among the 95 in our tracker. For a need measured in years, the other number to know is reconditioned stock: the median reconditioned straight stairlift is advertised at £1,595, and trade sellers were asking £9,500 and £10,950 for reconditioned Stiltz lifts in August 2026. Our reconditioned home lifts page covers what to check.
4. Who is paying: grants and VAT
A Disabled Facilities Grant can pay for either, if the council’s assessment finds the work necessary and appropriate. GOV.UK gives the maximum as £30,000 in England and £36,000 in Wales, and the amount depends on income and savings. The median straight stairlift would use 7% of the England maximum. The median through-floor lift would use 53%, which leaves much less room for any other adaptation in the same grant. Our grants checker covers each UK nation.
VAT is where the two part company. HMRC zero-rates both a stairlift and a lift that helps a disabled person move between floors of their home. The difference comes for people aged 60 or over who do not qualify as disabled: HMRC’s list for the 5% reduced rate names stair lifts, grab rails, ramps, bath lifts and walk-in baths, and it does not name home lifts. So a buyer in that position pays 5% on a stairlift and the standard 20% on a home lift. On the median prices, that is about £100 against £3,200. Check the basis on any quote: every home lift maker in our tracker that states a VAT basis publishes its price excluding VAT.
5. What each one needs from the house
A stairlift rail is fixed to the stair treads, and the lift charges from an ordinary plug socket. Stairlift Costs puts a straight stairlift at one to two hours to fit on the day, and removal later leaves screw holes in the treads.
A through-floor lift needs space on both floors and an opening cut through the ceiling. Uplifts includes the aperture cut and power connection in its published price, and Stiltz and Lifton say their lifts plug into a 13 A socket. MyJobQuote puts the labour on a through-floor lift at two to five days. Planning permission is not normally needed for an internal lift, but building regulations still apply. See planning permission for a home lift, building regulations and the installation process.
6. What you get back when it is no longer needed
Very little, for a stairlift. TK Home Solutions is the only stairlift maker we found that publishes a buy-back schedule, and it pays £50 or £100 for a straight lift and £100 or £200 for a curved one, and only within two years of purchase. Halton Stairlifts publishes removal at anywhere from £0 to £600.
A home lift holds more of its value in pounds, although the figures below are what sellers asked and nobody has published what they sold for. Used through-floor lifts were advertised at £1,500 to £10,950 in August 2026. One private seller listed a Stiltz Duo Vista with a headline of £5,000, having paid £16,895 excluding VAT. No home lift seller in our dataset publishes a removal price. Our page on home lifts and property value covers the sale of the house itself.
7. Set against the cost of care
At £1,298 a week for a self-funder, the median straight stairlift costs the same as about a week and a half in a care home, and the median through-floor lift about twelve weeks. A home lift that keeps someone at home for three months longer than they would otherwise have managed has cost no more than those three months of fees. Our cost of care comparison and Stairlift Costs’ ageing in place cost report set out the figures.
When neither is the answer
If the person is unsteady on the stairs but can still use them, start with the free tier. In England, councils must not charge for minor adaptations that cost £1,000 or less, which covers most grab rails, second banisters and ramps. Moving a bedroom and shower room downstairs is the other common route, and it depends on the shape of the house. Ask the council for an occupational therapy assessment either way, since it is also the first step towards a grant.
What about a mobility scooter?
A scooter is for getting about outside, and it does nothing for the stairs at home. A household can need both, with the scooter for trips out and a stairlift or home lift for the stairs. For stairlift suppliers near you, Stairlift Locations lists firms by town.
How these figures were built
Stairlift prices come from the UK Stairlift Price Tracker, 290 datapoints captured on 20 August 2026 and re-checked on 31 August. Its published medians are £2,800 for all 73 new prices, £1,995 straight, £4,395 curved and £1,595 for 56 reconditioned prices. The stairlift dataset is downloadable.
Home lift prices come from our UK Home Lift Price Tracker, 95 published prices from 34 publishers captured on 20 August 2026. The £16,000 median uses the 24 through-floor prices that a manufacturer, dealer or installer publishes as a starting or fixed price. Trade directories, councils, used listings and generic market ranges quoted by a maker are left out. The lowest is £12,000 on an undated page, and the lowest with a date attached is £13,000, which is why the rest of this site uses £13,000 as its floor. All 47 new home lift prices from sellers, of every type, have a median of £17,000.
Published prices mix VAT bases. Stiltz, Lifton, Cibes and Companion publish excluding VAT, My Mobility UK publishes including VAT, and many sellers do not say. The ten-year figure is the median price plus ten annual services and nothing else. The VAT row applies each rate to the median as published. It shows the size of the difference and is not a quote. Every price here is one a seller advertised; none came from a quote we requested.
The full price bands by lift type are on our home lift prices page, and every one of the 95 home lift prices behind this page is listed with its source in the home lift price tracker. Stairlift Costs keeps the matching stairlift price tracker, updated monthly. If a home lift looks likely, read how through-floor lifts work, then try the home lift finder.
Stairlift or home lift: your questions answered
The six questions below are answered with the same figures as the tables above.
Is a stairlift cheaper than a home lift?
Yes. The median published price of a new straight stairlift is £1,995 and a curved one £4,395. The median published through-floor home lift is £16,000, eight times the straight stairlift. With ten years of servicing added, that is about £3,500 against £20,000.
Is a home lift better than a stairlift?
Only for some people. For a user who must stay in a wheelchair, a home lift is the only one of the two that works, and the same applies if a carer has to ride with them or the stairs cannot be used. Where the user can sit on a moving seat safely and the stairs take a rail, the stairlift costs far less for the same trip between floors.
Can a stairlift carry a wheelchair?
No. A stairlift carries one seated passenger, and the user has to move from the wheelchair onto the seat. If that is not safe, a wheelchair through-floor lift is the alternative, published from £15,500 to £16,000.
Is VAT charged on stairlifts and home lifts?
Both are zero-rated when supplied to a disabled person for their home. For people aged 60 or over who do not qualify as disabled, HMRC allows a 5% reduced rate on stairlifts but does not list home lifts, so those buyers pay 20% on a home lift.
Will a Disabled Facilities Grant pay for a home lift?
It can, if the council assesses the lift as necessary and appropriate. The maximum is £30,000 in England and £36,000 in Wales, and the award depends on income and savings. The median through-floor lift would use just over half of the England maximum, and the median straight stairlift 7%.
Can you rent a home lift instead of buying one?
We found no published home lift rental price among 95 UK home lift prices. Stairlift rental is widely published, from £245 upfront then £10.38 a week to around £1,300 upfront then £80 a month.
Prices captured 20 August 2026 (home lifts) and 20 to 31 August 2026 (stairlifts). VAT and grant rules read on GOV.UK on 15 September 2026. Compiled by the UK Homelifts research team.
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