Euro Banknotes Remain ‘Trusted and Safe’

The European Central Bank (ECB) has reported the number of counterfeit euro banknotes remained low in 2022 with just 376,000 withdrawn from circulation. This represents the second-lowest proportion of fake to real banknotes ever recorded.

The likelihood of receiving a counterfeit banknote is extremely small—with just 13 counterfeits detected per million genuine notes last year—and thanks to the cutting-edge security measures employed in banknote printing, most are also easy to spot. The ECB notes its ‘feel, look, tilt’ check for banknotes is an easy way to ensure they are genuine, and thus they ‘remain a trusted a safe means of payment’.

The small, 8.4 percent increase in counterfeits over 2021 ‘reflects the recovery of economic activity in 2022 after most COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted’. €20 and €50 notes are the most frequently counterfeited, and 96.6 percent of fakes were found in euro area countries, while 2.7 percent were found in non-euro area EU Member States and 0.7 percent in other parts of the world.

Counter to the Europewide trend, De Nederlandsche Bank reported an increase in counterfeits found in the Netherlands of 47 percent over 2021. The majority of these were ‘very low-quality forgeries, and only a few showed signs of trying to mimic the security features of an original banknote’, making them easy to detect. The Bank of Finland reported a decrease in counterfeits compared to 2021.