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Safety Code for Small Amusement Facilities

National Standard Interpretation Materials

I. Standard Number and Standard Name

The name of this standard is “Safety Code for Small Amusement Facilities,” and its standard number is GB 34272—2025.

II. Background of Standard Development

Children are the future and hope of our nation. As a core setting for children’s daily entertainment, physical development, and social interaction, small-scale amusement facilities have become widely distributed across various public spaces—including parks, residential communities, shopping malls, and school campuses. However, as the variety of these facilities continues to expand and their combinations grow increasingly complex, associated safety risks have also become more prominent. These include excessive levels of harmful substances in materials, insufficient structural strength, sharp protrusions that pose serious risks of entrapment and injury, and inadequate emergency response measures. Such issues have led to numerous accidents resulting in injuries—and even permanent disabilities—sparking an increasingly strong call from all sectors of society for enhanced safety standards for small-scale amusement facilities. Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the mandatory national standard “Safety Specifications for Small-Scale Amusement Facilities,” establishing a robust legal framework to safeguard children’s recreational safety.

III. Main Contents of the Standard

Based on a systematic review and analysis of accident factors and various hazard sources associated with small amusement facilities, the new standard specifies requirements for materials, structural integrity, emergency evacuation procedures, facility surfaces and protrusions, pinch protection, entanglement protection, fall protection, product labeling, and instructions for use, maintenance, and servicing. Compared to the previous GB/T 34272—2017 "Safety Code for Small Amusement Facilities," the new standard has been revised primarily in the following aspects:

1.  Strengthen safety protection design and enhance the inherent safety level. The new standard further refines and enhances protection against pinching of the head and neck, body pinching, finger pinching, and entanglement, and clearly defines the permissible gap values for pinching hazards. It also optimizes the requirements for facility surfaces and protrusions to eliminate the risk of cuts caused by sharp edges. Additionally, it introduces new requirements for anti-climbing designs and anti-water-accumulation designs, and standardizes the testing methods.

2.  Strengthen materials safety management and solidify the bottom line for health protection. Given the high frequency of skin contact among children and their tendency to engage in biting behaviors, the new standard further refines the regulatory requirements for harmful substances. For example, the control range for lead content has been expanded from “coating level” to “total lead content in materials,” ensuring comprehensive coverage of various substrates such as plastics and metals. The restrictions on phthalate content have also been broadened to cover all flexible components that come into direct contact with children’s skin. Additionally, mandatory requirements for formaldehyde emissions from man-made boards have been introduced, along with specific, clearly defined testing methods.

3.  Clearly define structural calculations for tall and large-scale equipment to prevent collapse accidents: In response to the trend toward “larger-scale” small amusement facilities, the new standard requires that facilities with platform heights exceeding 3 meters undergo comprehensive structural stress calculations. These calculations should focus on verifying key performance indicators such as static strength, fatigue strength, stiffness, and stability. At the same time, the standard strengthens verification under extreme operating conditions to ensure that the facilities maintain structural stability under all possible scenarios, thereby eliminating the risk of collapse from the design stage onward.

4.  Improve emergency evacuation requirements and enhance the ability to handle sudden emergencies: For enclosed environments such as naughty forts and large-scale combination play structures, the new standard explicitly stipulates that enclosed play areas must be equipped with no fewer than two entrances and exits, and also specifies the dimensions of emergency evacuation routes, thereby providing sufficient space to ensure the rapid evacuation of children in emergencies and facilitate rescue operations by staff.

5.  Refine maintenance and management requirements, and ensure that principal responsibilities are fulfilled: Addressing the widespread issue of “heavy use, light maintenance” commonly found in small amusement facilities, the new standard has refined the maintenance and servicing instructions, clearly specifying detailed requirements for daily inspections and maintenance, operational procedures, emergency rescue measures, vulnerable parts, safety signage, and amusement guidelines.

IV. Significance of Standard Implementation

The revision and implementation of this standard are of great significance for enhancing the intrinsic safety level of small amusement facilities, ensuring product quality, reducing accident risks, strengthening operational management by operating entities, and reinforcing regulatory oversight. This will effectively safeguard the lives and safety of adolescents and children, yielding substantial social benefits.

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