The ECB opens its design contest for the next series of euro banknotes today, addressed to graphic designers and artists residing in the European Union. It is the first concrete step towards the third generation of euro banknotes, after the first series introduced in 2002 and the Europa series completed in 2019.
The contest is not the beginning of the redesign, but the moment when the process becomes visual. The ECB had launched the wider redesign work in 2021, then moved through public consultation, expert advice, theme selection and motif selection before inviting designers to translate those decisions into banknote proposals.
The next euro series moves from theme selection to open design competition.
The contest does not start from a blank page. In November 2023 the ECB had already selected two possible themes after consultation and expert work: “European culture” and “Rivers and birds”. The first looks at shared cultural spaces and personalities; the second connects natural landscapes, biodiversity and resilience across the continent.
It is useful to separate three levels. The themes define the broad direction, the motifs indicate possible subjects for each denomination, and the design contest tests how those ideas could become actual banknote layouts. None of these stages, by itself, is the final printed note.
That distinction matters because banknotes are unusually constrained design objects. A proposal has to carry a theme, leave room for security features, remain readable in different languages and sizes, work in machines and still feel familiar enough to be accepted quickly by the public.
From today the process moves into a more visible phase. Eligible designers submit applications, a shortlist is prepared and the selected participants will then develop concrete visual proposals for the future notes. In other words, the themes are now fixed, but the imagery is still open and will be shaped by the competition.
These are not final banknotes yet. After the design phase, the ECB plans to present the shortlisted proposals to the public, gather feedback and only later let the Governing Council decide which direction to adopt. The institution is treating the redesign as both a technical exercise and a symbolic one, because banknotes must function securely while also representing the euro area.
For collectors, the announcement is a milestone but not yet a collecting event. There are no circulating notes to catalogue, no signatures to compare and no printer codes to study. What can be tracked now is the institutional path that will eventually define those material details.
Printing and circulation dates will come much later. Today’s announcement matters because it shows that the future series is no longer a distant idea: by 15 July 2025 the ECB has moved the project from discussion into a formal, scheduled design process.
