Euro Banknotes

The euro banknotes are the banknotes of the euro, the currency of the Eurozone and have been in circulation since 2002. They are issued by the National Central Banks of the Eurosystem or the European Central Bank. In 1999 the euro was born virtually and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate. The euro rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded behind the rest of the EU.

Denominations of the notes range from €5 to €500 and, unlike euro coins, the design is identical across the whole of the eurozone, although they are issued and printed in various member states. The euro banknotes are pure cotton fibre, which improves their durability as well as making the banknotes have a distinctive feel. They measure from 120 by 62 millimetres (4.7 in × 2.4 in) to 160 by 82 millimetres (6.3 in × 3.2 in) and have a variety of colour schemes.

The euro notes contain many complex security features such as watermarks, invisible ink, holograms and microprinting that document their authenticity. While euro coins have a national side indicating the country of issue (although not necessarily of minting), euro notes lack this. Instead, this information is encoded within the first character of each note's serial number.

According to ECB estimates, in May 2012, there were approximately 14,823,982,000 banknotes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €883,004,596,800 worth of banknotes.

There are several communities of hobbyists, such as EuroBillTracker, which track the euro banknotes as they pass through their hands, to record their numbers and monitor their travel. EuroBillTracker had registered over 112.20 million notes as of November 25th, 2012. That is over €2,142.43 million worth of banknotes.

On 8 November 2012, the ECB announced the old notes will be replaced, starting with the 5 euro note in May 2013. Prominent in the new security features will be the face of Europa.