The number of freight elevators in a structure is the number of elevators designated especially for transportation between floor levels of non-passenger cargo, such as furniture and sold goods. A freight elevator may also be available to passengers however, as a supplement to the allotment of passenger elevators, although priority in a freight elevator is generally given to freight traffic.

Freight elevators are often referred to as "service elevators".

A freight elevator can carry passengers while remaining a freight elevator. Passenger access alone does not make it part of the passenger-elevator count, whose definition expressly excludes freight elevators. Vehicle elevators have their own vehicle-carrying purpose.

What is counted is cabs, not shafts and not stops. Two cabs in one shaft are two elevators, and an elevator serving forty floors is one.