The counterfeit euro banknotes withdrawn in 2023 remain a "limited" number (around 467,000), but they are increasing compared to 2022. This is what emerges from the data published by the ECB.
The central institute underlines that although it is a very modest share, equal to 16 fake banknotes per million authentic ones, the actual number of counterfeits has increased compared to the 2022 level, exceptionally low following the pandemic (13 per million).
In any case, the number of fakes remained lower than in the years before the pandemic (in 2019 there were 23 per million).
The 20 and 50 euro denominations continued to record the highest number of counterfeits and together represent over 70% of counterfeits.
97.2% of the counterfeit banknotes were found in euro area countries, while 1.9% came from non-euro area EU member states and 0.9% from other regions of the world.
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