New Euro Banknote Designs Revealed to the Public in Frankfurt

On 20 August 2026, the European Central Bank put all ten shortlisted new euro banknote designs in front of a live public audience for the first time — at the Europa Open Air concert on the banks of the Main in Frankfurt. For the roughly 350 million people who use euro cash every day, it is the closest look yet at what the next generation of notes could look like.

The event, co-hosted with broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk at Weseler Werft, doubled as an invitation: visitors were asked to share their views through an online survey that stays open until 21 September 2026. This article, compiled by gf6.com from the ECB’s own announcement and corroborating European coverage, walks you through what was shown, what happens next, and what the data does and does not tell us. Understanding the new euro banknote designs in full requires looking at these details closely.

The finding — what the ECB actually showed — New euro banknote designs

The headline is simple: ten designs, two themes, one public vote. The ECB used its annual free concert to display every shortlisted proposal side by side and to hand the next step of the process — public feedback — to ordinary euro users rather than keeping it inside expert panels. These figures put the new euro banknote designs into clearer perspective.

Here is the locked breakdown of what was presented on 20 August 2026:

The event was reported by multiple outlets, including the Banque de France and Euronews — see Banque de France and Euronews.

What it means for you

Two things stand out from the numbers. First, the funnel was steep: 1,241 submissions in July 2025, narrowed to 25 in the second phase, then 39 final proposals by April 2026, and now just 10 in front of the public. That is a competitive design process by any measure, and it means the choices you see in Frankfurt are already heavily filtered. This context matters for anyone following the new euro banknote designs.

Second, the two themes are deliberately different in tone. “European culture” leans on named individuals — Beethoven, Marie Curie, Cervantes, Leonardo da Vinci, Bertha von Suttner — while “Rivers and birds” turns away from portraits and toward shared natural heritage. That is a genuine choice about how a common currency should represent nearly two dozen countries, and it is the choice on which the ECB is now asking for public input. It is a central thread in the wider new euro banknote designs.

ECB President Christine Lagarde framed the public role directly: “This year there will also be an opportunity for visitors to engage with us and share their views on the design of future euro banknotes.” The Governing Council is expected to make the final design decision by end-2026, with new notes scheduled to enter circulation from end-2026. Such details shaped how the new euro banknote designs unfolded.

For anyone travelling through the euro area, or handling banks in Germany and their ATMs, the practical takeaway is that the physical cash you use today will change in look — though not in value — within the coming years.

How the shortlist was built

The path from open call to Frankfurt display took roughly a year. The contest launched in July 2025 and drew 1,241 submissions from EU-based graphic designers — a substantial response for a single, highly specialised brief. From there, 25 candidates were selected to enter a second phase of development.

By April 2026, 39 final proposals had been submitted. The ten shown at Weseler Werft on 20 August 2026 are the shortlisted designs drawn from that pool, grouped under the two announced themes. The remaining steps are the public survey window through 21 September 2026 and then the Governing Council’s decision expected by end-2026.

Why do this at an open-air concert?

Choosing the Europa Open Air rather than a press-only briefing is itself part of the story. The event is free, it is co-hosted with a public broadcaster, and it puts the designs in front of a general audience rather than only currency specialists or journalists. That is consistent with the ECB’s stated aim of gathering broad public feedback before the final choice.

It is also worth noting what the announcement does not settle. The ten designs are on display, but the ECB has not indicated which theme is leading, and the survey results themselves are not a formal vote. Anyone reading coverage that ranks the designs or predicts a winner is going beyond what the ECB has actually said.

Explore the full data behind this article: bank branches worldwide and ATMs worldwide in the gf6.com directory.

Methodology

This article is a rewrite for style of an already-public event. All figures, names, dates and themes are drawn directly from the ECB’s press release of 11 August 2026 (ECB press release), corroborated by the Banque de France and Euronews. No figure has been added, estimated or recalculated. gf6.com operates a worldwide directory of bank branches and ATMs — roughly 445,000 locations, curated over four years — and covers currency and cash-infrastructure news where it directly affects the people using that network. We do not claim any independent reporting on this event beyond summarising what these sources state.

Where this article interprets the numbers — for example, describing the shortlist funnel as “steep” — that is our characterisation of the ECB’s own figures, not an additional claim of fact.

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