Abstract Conventional brakes require a powerful actuator, leading to large, heavy and in most cases energy consuming brakes. This paper introduces a fundamentally different brake concept called statically balanced brakes (SBBs). SBBs do not require any actuation force to maintain a braking torque and only have to move a small mass to vary that torque. Therefore, their energy consumption is potentially very low. In an SBB, one of the two friction surfaces is connected through springs to a braking block. This braking block is connected through a mechanism to a second set of springs, the other side of which connects to the ground. The total energy in the two sets of springs is constant, which results in a zero-force characteristic at the braking block. The position of this statically balanced braking block determines the displacement of the first set of springs and thus the normal force between the friction surfaces. We categorize mechanisms that can be used in SBBs and show two embodiments: one with leaf springs with a range of positions with negative stiffness and one with torsion springs and a non-linear cam mechanism. Results show that the actuation force can be reduced by approximately 95–97% in comparison to regular brakes. This shows that in SBBs, the actuation force can be almost eliminated and thus showing the potential of SBBs to be small, lightweight and energy efficient.