National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN 14238:2026. It supersedes BS EN 14238:2004+A1:2009, which is withdrawn.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee MHE/3, Cranes and derricks.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

This publication has been prepared under a mandate given to the European Standards Organizations by the European Commission and the European Free Trade Association. It is intended to support requirements of the EU legislation detailed in the European Foreword. A European Annex, usually Annex ZA or ZZ, describes how this publication relates to that EU legislation.

For the Great Britain market (England, Scotland and Wales), if UK Government has designated this publication for conformity with UKCA marking (or similar) legislation, it may contain an additional National Annex. Where such a National Annex exists, it shows the correlation between this publication and the relevant UK legislation. If there is no National Annex of this kind, the relevant Annex ZA or ZZ in the body of the European text will indicate the relationship to UK regulation applicable in Great Britain. References to EU legislation may need to be read in accordance with the UK designation and the applicable UK law. Further information on designated standards can be found at www.bsigroup.com/standardsandregulation.

For the Northern Ireland market, UK law will continue to implement relevant EU law subject to periodic confirmation. Therefore Annex ZA/ZZ in the European text, and references to EU legislation, are still valid for this market.

UK Government is responsible for legislation. For information on legislation and policies relating to that legislation, consult the relevant pages of www.gov.uk.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 31 October 2026.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 15 June 2026.

CEN members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

This document (EN 14238:2026) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 147 “Cranes - Safety”, the secretariat of which is held by SFS.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by March 2027, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by March 2027.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document supersedes EN 14238:2004+A1:2009.

This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN by the European Commission. The Standing Committee of the EFTA States subsequently approves these requests for its Member States.

For the relationship with EU Legislation, see informative Annex ZA, which is an integral part of this document.

EN 14238:2026 includes the following significant technical changes with respect to EN 14238:2004+A1:2009:

integration and rules for application of the EN 13001 series of standards;
integration and rules for application of EN ISO 13849‑1:2023;
reference to EN 13155:2020+A1:2025 and to EN 16851:2017+A1:2020;
addition of the requirements according to Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230.

To select a suitable set of crane standards for a given application, see Annex C.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN website.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organisations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Introduction

This document has been prepared to be a harmonized standard to provide one means for manually controlled load manipulators to conform with the essential health and safety requirements of the Machinery Regulation, as mentioned in Annex ZA.

This document is a type-C standard as stated in EN ISO 12100:2010.

This document is of relevance, in particular, for the following stakeholder groups representing the market players with regard to machinery safety:

machine manufacturers (small, medium and large enterprises);
health and safety bodies (regulators, accident prevention organizations, market surveillance, etc.).

Others can be affected by the level of machinery safety achieved with the means of the document by the above-mentioned stakeholder groups:

machine users/employers (small, medium and large enterprises);
machine users/employees (e.g. trade unions, organizations for people with special needs);
service providers, e.g. for maintenance (small, medium and large enterprises);
consumers (in case of machinery intended for use by consumers).

The above-mentioned stakeholder groups have been given the possibility to participate at the drafting process of this document.

The machinery concerned and the extent to which hazards, hazardous situations or hazardous events are covered are indicated in the Scope of this document.

When requirements of this type-C standard are different from those which are stated in type-A or type-B standards, the requirements of this type-C standard take precedence over the requirements of the other standards for machines that have been designed and built according to the requirements of this type-C standard.

1 Scope

This document specifies requirements for manually controlled load manipulating cranes (herein referred to as load manipulators), powered by an energy other than human energy, to assist an operator in the handling of loads.

This document does not cover:

mechanically operated balancers that are based on springs, counterweights or automatons;
manipulating robots;
operation in severe conditions (e.g. extreme environmental conditions such as: freezer applications, high temperatures, corrosive environment, strong magnetic fields);
operation subject to special rules;
handling of loads the nature of which could lead to dangerous situations (e.g. molten metal, acids/alkalis, radiating materials, especially brittle loads);

NOTE High risk applications are dealt with by EN 13135:2026 and EN 13001‑2:2021.

hazards occurring during construction, transportation, decommissioning and disposal;
vibration.

This document does not cover hazards related to the lifting of persons.

This document deals with all significant hazards, hazardous situations or hazardous events relevant to load manipulators, when they are used as intended and under conditions of misuse which are reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer. The significant hazards covered by this document are identified in Annex A.

This document is not applicable to load manipulators manufactured before the date of its publication.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Safety requirements and/or protective/risk reduction measures

4.1 General

4.2 Structure of the load manipulator

4.3 Vacuum lifting tubes

4.4 Load lifting attachment

4.5 Control system and safety functions

4.6 Protective measures

5 Verification of the safety requirements and/or measures

5.1 General

5.2 Modes of verification

5.3 Methods of verification

6 Information for use

6.1 General

6.2 Instruction handbook

6.3 Marking

6.4 Signals and warning devices

6.5 Further information

Bibliography