Facts and figures

About euro banknotes

• We speak of paper money, but euro notes are in fact made of cotton cloth. De Nederlandsche Bank prints new euro notes on 100% sustainably produced cotton. This is better for the environment than traditional cotton production.

• Everyone should be able to pay with banknotes. You can feel the big numbers on the notes, which helps visually impaired people know what denominations they have.

• Damaged banknotes are still valid as long as more than 50% remains. Is there just a small corner missing? Don't worry, you can still pay with it. Is the note badly damaged? If you turn it in to De Nederlandsche Bank, you will be reimbursed for its value under certain conditions. For instance, the note must not have been deliberately damaged and at least half of it must remain.

Visual van 5 eurobiljet met katoentakken.

Bar chart graph with numbers of counterfeit banknotes per year. From 2015 to 2023. Each year fewer counterfeit banknotes are detected. From 66,500 in 2015 to 17,400 banknotes in 2023. Under the heading About counterfeit euro banknotes you will find the full description.

About counterfeit euro banknotes

Counterfeiting has been around for as long as money has. It’s getting harder and hard to counterfeit euro banknotes, but criminals are still trying.
Fewer counterfeit notes have been detected in recent years. Every year, banks check about 1.3 billion euro notes for authenticity.
Over 17,000 counterfeit notes were detected in 2023, That means about 1 in 75,000 notes was counterfeit. Notes of €20 and €50 make up most of the counterfeits, as these are the most commonly used for payments.
If you think you may have a counterfeit banknote, take it to the police.

About the gold reserves of De Nederlandsche Bank

De Nederlandsche Bank manages the gold of the Netherlands. The gold is stored in various places. Of the total reserves, 31% is kept in the Netherlands. A further 31% is stored in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, anchored on Manhattan’s granite bedrock. The rest of the Dutch gold (38%) is stored safely in the vaults of the Bank of Canada, in Ottawa, and the Bank of England, in London.
De Nederlandsche Bank’s gold vault holds 14,000 gold bars of 12.5 kilograms each and a thousand crates of gold coins. The total weight of all that gold is 200,000 kilos and it is worth €12.0 billion (March 2024).
If you melted all the world's gold and formed it into a single block, it would fit under the Eiffel Tower. That's all the gold there is! And that is why gold is so valuable.

Visual over geldzekerheid: spaarvarken met munten staat op een bank.

About paying and saving in Europe

Your money in a checking or savings account is protected up to €100,000 by the Dutch Deposit Guarantee. That's a reassuring idea! Do you have a bank account? Your IBAN (international bank account number) allows you to make euro payments in European countries. You can make bank transfers, authorise direct debits and pay with debit cards.
TARGET2 is the European system for processing large payments. Central banks and commercial banks use this platform to process euro payments in real time. Each day, about 400,000 transactions are processed on average, with a combined value of €2.2 trillion.