Techniques for handling emergency calls in a fifth generation (5G) telecommunication network are discussed herein. Some 5G-compatible user equipment (UEs) support 5G emergency calls, while other 5G-compatible UEs do not support 5G emergency calls. If a UE supports 5G emergency calls, the 5G telecommunication network may instruct the UE during network registration to use the 5G telecommunication network for any emergency calls attempted later. However, if a UE does not support 5G emergency calls, the 5G telecommunication network may instruct the UE during network registration to instead use Long-Term Evolution (LTE) emergency fallback procedures for emergency calls. Such LTE emergency fallback procedures can cause the 5G telecommunication network to steer the UE to LTE for an emergency call almost immediately after receiving a service request from the UE, even though the 5G telecommunication network itself supports emergency calls.