Euro banknotes are getting their first redesign since 2002, and the ECB wants your vote
The ECB unveiled 12 shortlisted designs for the next generation of euro banknotes across two competing themes. The public survey runs to 21 September, with a final decision due by the end of 2026.
The notes in your wallet are being replaced, and for the first time since 2002 the artwork actually changes. On 23 July, Christine Lagarde presented the 12 shortlisted designs for the next generation of euro banknotes — two for each denomination from 5 to 200 — and opened a public survey where anyone can say which side they are on. It runs until 21 September.
What are the two themes?
One is European Culture, swapping the current notes’ generic bridges and windows for faces that actually existed: Maria Callas, Marie Curie, Cervantes, Leonardo da Vinci, Beethoven. The other is Rivers and Birds, betting on the continent’s biodiversity instead of historical figures. They are two very different ideas of what a banknote should say about the people using it — the humans who built Europe, or the nature Europe still has.
The deeper shift is worth noticing. Euro notes have never carried people. The original series deliberately avoided any real face or monument so that no member state would look like it had won at the others’ expense. Picking Cervantes or Callas walks away from that careful neutrality, which is why this vote is about more than taste.
How do you take part in the ECB survey?
The survey sits on the European Central Bank’s official site and accepts responses from any euro-area citizen until 21 September 2026. It is not a referendum — the ECB’s Governing Council decides, weighing the jury’s recommendations, the technical assessment of each design and the consultation results.
When will the new euro notes arrive?
The winning concept should be chosen by the end of 2026, but nobody is buying coffee with a new note next year. Between the decision, production and distribution through national central banks, years pass, and today’s notes stay valid throughout. This is the same ECB currently moving rates and dragging Euribor along behind it — except this decision will sit in everyone’s wallet for a generation.
By Beatriz Mota
Image: DXR / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
