page_title: Swiss franc
section_title: Banknotes
hierarchical_section_title: Swiss franc / Banknotes
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of 20 CHF fine print: distance between earth and various celestial bodies, in light seconds
context_page_description: The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia. The Swiss National Bank issues banknotes and the federal mint Swissmint issues coins.
  The smaller denomination, a hundredth of a franc, is a Rappen in German, centime in French, centesimo in Italian, and rap in Romansh. The ISO 4217 code of the currency used by banks and financial institutions is CHF.
  The official symbols Fr. and fr. are widely used by businesses and advertisers, also for the English language. According Art. 1 SR/RS 941.101 of the federal law collection the internationally official abbreviation – besides the national languages – however is CHF, also in English; respective guides also request to use the ISO 4217 code. Outdated is the use of SFr. for Swiss Franc and fr.sv.. The Latinate “CH” stands for Confoederatio Helvetica. Given the different languages used in Switzerland, Latin is used for language-neutral inscriptions on its coins.
context_section_description: In 1907, the Swiss National Bank took over the issuance of banknotes from the cantons and various banks. It introduced denominations of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 francs. 20-franc notes were introduced in 1911, followed by 5-franc notes in 1913. In 1914, the Federal Treasury issued paper money in denominations of 5, 10 and 20 francs. These notes were issued in three different versions: French, German and Italian. The State Loan Bank also issued 25-franc notes that year. In 1952, the national bank ceased issuing 5-franc notes but introduced 10-franc notes in 1955. In 1996, 200-franc notes were introduced whilst the 500-franc note was discontinued.
  Eight series of banknotes have been printed by the Swiss National Bank, six of which have been released for use by the general public. The sixth series from 1976, designed by Ernst and Ursula Hiestand, depicted persons from the world of science.
  This series was recalled on 1 May 2000 and is no longer legal tender, but notes can still be exchanged for valid ones of the same face value at any National Bank branch or authorized agent, or mailed in by post to the National Bank in exchange for a bank account deposit. The exchange program will end on 30 April 2020, after which sixth-series notes will lose all value. As of 2016, 1.1 billion francs' worth of sixth-series notes had not yet been exchanged, even though they had not been legal tender for 16 years and only 4 more years remained to exchange them. To avoid having to expire such large amounts of money in 2020, the Federal Council (cabinet) and National Bank proposed in April 2017 to remove the time limit on exchanges for the sixth and future recalled series; this proposal is still in the draft bill stage as of early 2018.
  The seventh series was printed in 1984, but kept as a "reserve series", ready to be used if, for example, wide counterfeiting of the current series suddenly happened. When the Swiss National Bank decided to develop new security features and to abandon the concept of a reserve series, the details of the seventh series were released and the printed notes were destroyed. 
  The current, eighth series of banknotes was designed by Jörg Zintzmeyer around the theme of the arts and released starting in 1995. In addition to its new vertical design, this series was different from the previous one on several counts. Probably the most important difference from a practical point of view was that the seldom-used 500-franc note was replaced by a new 200-franc note; this new note has indeed proved more successful than the old 500-franc note. The base colours of the new notes were kept similar to the old ones, except that the 20-franc note was changed from blue to red to prevent a frequent confusion with the 100-franc note, and that the 10-franc note was changed from red to yellow. The size of the notes was changed as well, with all notes from the eighth series having the same height (74 mm), while the widths were changed as well, still increasing with the value of the notes. The new series contains many more security features than the previous one; many of them are now visibly displayed and have been widely advertised, in contrast with the previous series for which most of the features were kept secret.
  All banknotes are quadrilingual, displaying all information in the four national languages. The banknotes depicting a Germanophone person have German and Romansch on the same side as the picture, whereas banknotes depicting a Francophone or an Italophone person have French and Italian on the same side as the picture. The reverse has the other two languages.
  When the fifth series lost its validity at the end of April 2000, the banknotes that had not been exchanged represented a total value of 244.3 million Swiss francs; in accordance with Swiss law, this amount was transferred to the Swiss Fund for Emergency Losses in the Case of Non-insurable Natural Disasters.
  In February 2005, a competition was announced for the design of the ninth series, then planned to be released around 2010 on the theme "Switzerland open to the world". The res
caption: Fine print of a CHF 20 banknote, with distances between earth and various celestial bodies in light-seconds
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