AbstractIn this article we analyze the effect of mass‐lumping in the linear triangular finite element approximation of second‐order elliptic eigenvalue problems. We prove that the eigenvalue obtained by using mass‐lumping is always below the one obtained with exact integration. For singular eigenfunctions, as those arising in non convex polygons, we prove that the eigenvalue obtained with mass‐lumping is above the exact eigenvalue when the mesh size is small enough. So, we conclude that the use of mass‐lumping is convenient in the singular case. When the eigenfunction is smooth several numerical experiments suggest that the eigenvalue computed with mass‐lumping is below the exact one if the mesh is not too coarse. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 19: 653–664, 2003