The European Central Bank (ECB) has released its half year statistics on counterfeit banknotes, showing a reduction compared to the second half of 2013.
In total, 331,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation during the first half of 2014. This equates to around 0.002% of banknotes in circulation today (16.4 billion notes as at June 30, 2014).
Most counterfeit notes were €20 and €50 denominations, accounting for 81% of all withdrawn counterfeit notes.
| Period | H1 2012 | H2 2012 | H1 2013 | H2 2013 | H1 2014 |
| Number of counterfeits | 251,000 | 280,000 | 317,000 | 353,000 | 331,000 |
The vast majority of counterfeit notes were detected within countries using the euro, with the remaining 1.9% found in EU member states and 0.1% found outside of these areas.
| Denomination | €5 | €10 | €20 | €50 | €100 | €200 | €500 |
| Number of counterfeits | 1.2% | 4.6% | 46.5% | 34.7% | 10.9% | 1.3% | 0.8% |
Source: ECB
