A weight compensation device for a lifting door, includes a spring element and a tensile element, which can be wound onto or unwound from a winding device in such a way that the spring element achieves its greatest pre-tension when the door leaf is in the closed position and is essentially tension-free when the door leaf is in the open position. The tensile element is narrower at the end facing the winding device than at the end facing the spring element and the winding device includes a guide device, which is used to wind the tensile element in such a way that the wound layers lie adjacent to one another without making contact. To achieve this, the guide faces around the perimeter of the guide device have a continuously increasing radius in the winding direction. This enables the provision of a weight compensation device that achieves the torques required for effective weight compensation by means of a simple construction. This also relates to a lifting door that is equipped with a weight compensation device of this type.