The fastest elevator in the world climbs at 47 mph. That is highway speed, straight up, inside an occupied building. We ranked the 12 quickest passenger elevators on Earth strictly by rated ascending speed — the figure lift engineers actually certify — and every one of them is in service today, so this is a list of rides you can genuinely take. Speed here means going up: elevators are deliberately gentler on the way down, and the descent record belongs to a different building entirely. Barely a handful of buildings anywhere run a passenger lift faster than 10 metres per second, and at that mark the world's supertalls bunch together at exactly the same rated speed, so ties are separated by how far the car travels in a single run, longest first — which puts a 504-metre climb in Dubai ahead of a 227-metre sprint in Tokyo at precisely the same 22.4 mph.
12 Fastest Elevators in the World (2026)
The record The fastest elevator in the world is the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre, in China — 47 mph (21 m/s), top speed. Source: Hitachi. Verified .
Fastest Elevators in the World The Ranking at a Glance
Fun Facts About the World's Fastest Elevators
- The record is a Guinness World Records title, certified in 2019 — Hitachi's lift at the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre is rated at 1,260 metres a minute going up, and just 600 going down.
- Every elevator here is far slower on the descent than the climb. Your inner ear tolerates being pushed up much better than being dropped, so engineers cap the downward rate deliberately.
- The fastest descending elevator in the world is in Yokohama, not Guangzhou — the Landmark Tower drops at 45 km/h, a record it has held since 1993 and one no newer building has chased.
- Ten metres per second is the industry's comfortable plateau. Five buildings on this list sit at exactly that figure, which is why the ranking separates them by how far each car travels in one run.
- Speed is not a modern invention: Sunshine 60 hit this same 22.4 mph in 1978 and would still make the top ten today, nearly fifty years later.
1. Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre
At 47 mph — 21 metres per second, or 1,260 metres a minute — the Hitachi lift inside the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre is the fastest passenger elevator ever put into service, and Guinness World Records certified it as such. It covers the 440 metres from the ground floor to the hotel lobby on the 95th in roughly 42 seconds, quick enough that the car has to manage the air around you as well as the cable above you.
The engineering that makes that bearable is as interesting as the number itself. The cabin is pressurised and adjusts actively as it climbs, so your ears do not pop the way they would in an ordinary high-rise lift, and guide rollers sense sideways vibration and cancel it in real time. Coming down, the same car is deliberately throttled to 600 metres a minute, less than half its climbing rate, because the human inner ear tolerates acceleration upward far better than the reverse.
2. Shanghai Tower
The Shanghai Tower runs its express car at 45.9 mph, or 1,230 metres per minute, carrying visitors from the second basement level to the observation deck on the 119th floor in about 53 seconds. Mitsubishi Electric built it, and when it entered service it collected three Guinness titles at once: fastest elevator, tallest elevator in a building, and fastest double-deck elevator.
It held the outright speed record for barely a year before Guangzhou took it, which tells you how fiercely the manufacturers were competing over Chinese supertalls in that period. The tower itself is 632 metres of twisted glass in the Lujiazui district, and the ride is the most popular way to experience it. Stand at the top and you can pick out two more entries from this ranking, because the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin Mao Tower are both a short walk from the base.
3. Taipei 101
Taipei 101 lifts you at 37.7 mph — 16.83 metres per second, or 1,010 metres a minute — from the fifth floor to the 89th-floor observatory in 37 seconds. Toshiba supplied the double-deck cars, and at opening they were roughly a third quicker than anything else running, a margin wide enough to keep Taipei 101 at the top of this ranking for twelve straight years.
What makes the ride memorable is that the building lets you see the machinery behind it. The observatory houses the tower's tuned mass damper, a giant golden steel sphere suspended between the upper floors that sways to counter typhoon winds and earthquakes, and it is visible from the same level you arrive at. The pressure-controlled cabins exist for the same reason the Guangzhou car needs them: at this rate of climb, managing air pressure is not a luxury.
4. Yokohama Landmark Tower
The Yokohama Landmark Tower climbs at 28 mph — 750 metres a minute, or 12.5 metres per second — reaching the Sky Garden observatory on the 69th floor in about 40 seconds. Mitsubishi Electric delivered the cars in 1993, and for eleven years afterwards they were the quickest passenger lifts anywhere on Earth.
The tower still holds one record outright, and it is an unusual one: this is the fastest descending elevator in the world, dropping at 45 km/h. Almost every other building here slows dramatically on the way down, so Yokohama's engineers solved a problem the rest of the industry chose to sidestep. The Sky Garden sits 273 metres up and looks out across the Minato Mirai waterfront, with Mount Fuji visible on clear days.
5. One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center runs the fastest elevators in the Western Hemisphere at 22.7 mph, or 2,000 feet per minute, carrying visitors from the lobby to the Skypod on the 102nd floor in about 47 seconds. That is only a whisker quicker than the cluster of buildings beneath it — the margin over Burj Khalifa is less than half a mile per hour — but it is enough to hold fifth place outright rather than on a tiebreaker.
ThyssenKrupp engineered the cars specifically for the building, wrapping them in aerodynamic aluminium shrouds that deflect air in the shaft much as a spoiler works on a car, and lining the cabs with sound-suppressing material to keep the ride quiet at speed. The Skypod is best known for the floor-to-ceiling screens that play a time-lapse of New York's skyline growing across four centuries during the ascent.
6. Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa heads the 22.4 mph group — 10 metres per second — and leads it on the tiebreaker that matters most here, which is distance. Its Otis double-deck cars make the longest single elevator run on the planet at 504 metres, so while five buildings on this list move at exactly the same rated speed, none of them sustains it for anything like as long.
The practical effect is a ride that feels less like a lift and more like a short flight. The express cars serve the At the Top observation decks on the 124th and 125th floors, and the tower also holds the record for the highest elevator installation of any building on Earth. Otis fitted the cabins with screens to occupy passengers on the way, which tells you something about how long a minute becomes when there is nothing to look at but a shaft wall.
7. Lotte World Tower
Seoul's Lotte World Tower matches the 22.4 mph pace and sits second within that group on rise, its Sky Shuttle covering 496 metres from the basement to the 121st-floor observatory in about a minute. Guinness World Records recognises it as the tallest double-deck elevator in the world, and Otis built the pair of cars that run it.
Each shuttle carries 54 passengers at a time across its two decks, making it one of the highest-capacity lifts ever installed. The interior is the real trick: the cabin walls and ceiling are lined with screens synchronised to the car's position in the shaft, so the ride plays as a continuous aerial film of Seoul rather than a minute spent staring at a door.
8. Tokyo Skytree
Tokyo Skytree's shuttle lifts hit 22.4 mph — 600 metres a minute — and cover the 350 metres to the Tembo Deck in 50 seconds, which places them third inside the 22.4 mph group on the distance tiebreaker. Toshiba built four of them, each rated for 40 passengers, making them the fastest large-capacity elevators in Japan and the only entry here inside a broadcasting tower rather than an occupied skyscraper.
The cars are finished with panels themed to the four seasons, a deliberate contrast to the engineering underneath. Skytree also runs a pair of service elevators with the longest travel distance in Japan at 464.4 metres, though those are not the ones visitors ride: the public route continues from the Tembo Deck up to the higher Tembo Galleria on a separate car.
9. Shanghai World Financial Center
The Shanghai World Financial Center also runs at 22.4 mph, or ten metres per second, and when ThyssenKrupp installed its cars in 2009 they were the fastest double-deck elevators in the world. They serve a sky lobby 240 metres up, and that comparatively short run is what places the building fourth within the 22.4 mph group on distance.
The tower is the one locals call the bottle opener, after the trapezoid aperture cut through its crown, and the observation deck on the 100th floor runs straight through that opening with glass panels underfoot. It stands directly beside Jin Mao Tower and across from the Shanghai Tower, which makes Lujiazui the only place on Earth where three entries from this ranking sit within a few minutes' walk of each other.
10. Sunshine 60
Sunshine 60 in Ikebukuro started all of this. Mitsubishi Electric delivered two cars here in 1978 rated at 600 metres a minute — 22.4 mph — and they were the fastest passenger elevators in the world, holding that title for fifteen years until Yokohama claimed it. At 227 metres the run was the longest in Japan when the building opened, though it is the shortest of the five cars tied at this speed today.
The ride still takes about 35 seconds to reach the 60th floor, and the deck up there has been reinvented as an observatory with a distinctly Tokyo character. What is genuinely remarkable is that a lift specified in the 1970s remains quick enough to rank alongside Dubai and Seoul: the industry pushed the ceiling higher, but 10 metres per second has proved to be a comfortable plateau rather than a stepping stone.
11. Jin Mao Tower
Jin Mao Tower runs its two express cars at 20.4 mph — 9.1 metres per second — from the basement to the 88th-floor observation deck in 45 seconds. It shares that figure exactly with the Chicago tower that closes this list, so the distance tiebreaker separates them: Jin Mao's run reaches roughly 340 metres, comfortably the longer of the two.
Mitsubishi supplied the lifts for a building that was once the tallest in China, and the pagoda-inspired setbacks of its exterior are echoed inside by a hollow atrium that drops through the hotel floors above the offices. Standing at the observation deck you look across at the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower, both of which now climb faster than the tower you are standing in.
12. 875 North Michigan Avenue
875 North Michigan Avenue closes the list at 20.4 mph, or 1,800 feet per minute, quick enough to put a 1960s Chicago skyscraper in the same bracket as Shanghai's supertalls. The Otis cars reach the 94th-floor observatory in roughly 39 seconds, and for decades they were billed as the fastest in the Western Hemisphere, a claim One World Trade Center has since taken over.
Most people still know the building as the John Hancock Center, and its X-braced black steel frame is one of the defining silhouettes of the Chicago skyline. The observatory trades on the ride as much as the view, with a tilting window feature that leans visitors out over the Magnificent Mile — a reminder that the lift is only the first thrill the building sells.
FAQ: The World's Fastest Elevators
What is the fastest elevator in the world?
The fastest elevator in the world is at the Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre in China. Built by Hitachi, it is rated at 1,260 metres per minute ascending — 47 mph, or 21 metres per second — and Guinness World Records certified it as the world's fastest lift in 2019. It reaches the 95th floor in about 42 seconds.
How fast is the fastest elevator in mph?
47 mph, which works out at 21 metres per second or 75.6 km/h — roughly the speed limit on a rural highway, travelled vertically. The second-quickest, at the Shanghai Tower, runs at 45.9 mph, and third-placed Taipei 101 manages 37.7 mph, so the drop-off below the top three is steep.
Why are elevators slower going down than going up?
Comfort and physiology. The human inner ear tolerates upward acceleration far better than the sensation of falling, and a rapid descent also causes ear-pressure problems. The Guangzhou record-holder climbs at 1,260 metres per minute but comes down at just 600. Yokohama Landmark Tower is the exception, holding the descent record at 45 km/h.
Can you ride the world's fastest elevators?
Yes. Every elevator on this list is in passenger service today, and most of them serve public observation decks. Taipei 101, Burj Khalifa, Lotte World Tower, Tokyo Skytree and One World Trade Center all sell observatory tickets that include the ride. The Guangzhou record-holder serves a hotel lobby on the 95th floor.
What is the fastest elevator in the United States?
One World Trade Center in New York, at 22.7 mph or 2,000 feet per minute. Its cars reach the 102nd-floor Skypod in about 47 seconds and are the fastest in the Western Hemisphere. Chicago's 875 North Michigan Avenue, long known as the John Hancock Center, held that title for decades at 20.4 mph.
Planning more of your trip? Keep exploring more world record-breakers.