To improve economy and practicability in a rope type elevator comprising a balance weight to be balanced with a half of passengers of a cage, while the largest task is required for a full passenger cage or an empty cage, by smoothing load by means of an adjusting device for the balance weight to reduce the capacity of a motor to 1/3, while achieving reductions of size and capacity of a hydraulic rodless cylinder and an accumulator to about 1/6.

A sash pulley 6 is provided for the balance weight 5 only in roping. A chain mechanism 13 to which a pair of parallel sprockets 11 and 12 for directly restraining the balance weight are rotatably fixed is provided. By setting the ratio of the pitch diameter of these sprockets to the pitch diameter of sprockets 16 and 20 in the hydraulic rodless cylinder to be about 3 for reducing the size and capacity.