Last updated: September 2026

What currency does Australia use?

Australia uses the Australian dollar, ISO code AUD, divided into 100 cents and issued by the Reserve Bank of Australia. The dollar replaced the Australian pound on 14 February 1966. Every Australian banknote in circulation today is printed on polymer, a thin plastic film, rather than on paper.

Note issue moved through several hands before it settled. The Reserve Bank of Australia records that responsibility passed from the Commonwealth Treasury to a Notes Board in 1920, to the Board of the Commonwealth Bank in 1924, and that the Commonwealth Bank Act of 1945 made that bank the sole issuer. In 1960 the role passed to the Reserve Bank of Australia, which still holds it. Printing has been done at Craigieburn, north of Melbourne, since October 1981, by the operation renamed Note Printing Australia in 1990.

What are Australian pre-decimal banknotes?

Australian pre-decimal banknotes are the Commonwealth notes denominated in pounds, shillings and pence, issued from 1913 until the decimal changeover in 1966. They are the foundation of Australian collecting, and the earliest issues, wartime printings and replacement notes are the pieces advanced collectors chase.

The story starts with two statutes passed in 1910. The Australian Notes Act assigned note issue to the Commonwealth Treasury and withdrew the status of state-issued notes, while the Bank Notes Tax Act imposed a tax of 10 per cent a year on banknotes issued by private banks, which ended private issue in practice. For the first three years the Treasury simply overprinted, or superscribed, existing private bank notes with the words Australian Note, payable in gold coin at the Commonwealth Treasury, and circulated them while new designs were prepared (RBA Museum).

Thomas Samuel Harrison, an English security printer, was appointed Australia's first banknote printer in 1912 and set up a works near the western end of Flinders Street in Melbourne. Harrison had the first Australian banknote, a ten shillings denomination, ready for numbering on 1 May 1913. The Reserve Bank's pocket guides group the pre-decimal notes into two families: the Australian Panorama designs of 1913 to 1914 and 1923 to 1925, and the Change and Stability issues of the 1930s and 1950s, dated 1933 to 1934, 1938 to 1940 and 1953 to 1954 (RBA Museum pocket guides).

When did Australia switch to decimal currency?

Australia adopted decimal currency on 14 February 1966, when the Australian dollar replaced the Australian pound. The Reserve Bank issued $1, $2, $10 and $20 notes on the changeover, added a $5 in 1967, a $50 in 1973 and a $100 in 1984. These first decimal notes were printed on paper.

The government announced the change in 1963, and the designer Gordon Andrews was selected in April 1964 after a competition; the Bank required Queen Elizabeth II on the $1 and left the other subjects to the designer in consultation with the Bank (RBA Museum). The result was a portrait gallery of Australian life: John Macarthur and William James Farrer on the $2, Sir Joseph Banks and Caroline Chisholm on the $5, Francis Greenway and Henry Lawson on the $10, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Lawrence Hargrave on the $20, Lord Florey and Sir Ian Clunies Ross on the $50, and Sir Douglas Mawson and John Tebbutt on the $100 (RBA, other banknotes).

Two of those denominations later disappeared from the printing schedule. The $1 note stopped being issued after the $1 coin arrived on 14 May 1984, and the $2 note stopped after the $2 coin arrived on 20 June 1988. That makes the paper $1 and $2 a closed, finite set, which is part of why they are such a common entry point.

Which country issued the first polymer banknote?

Australia issued the world's first polymer banknote: a commemorative $10 released in January 1988 for the bicentenary, developed by the Reserve Bank with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Australia then replaced its whole family of notes with polymer between 1992 and 1996, the first complete polymer series anywhere.

The 1988 note was a genuine technical first in two ways. It was the first banknote printed on a polymer substrate, and, according to the Reserve Bank Museum, 1988 was also the year Australia became the first country to put optically variable devices on its money (RBA Museum). Collectors should know that the note exists in two forms. The PMG World Paper Money Price Guide lists the folder issue dated 26 January 1988 with an AA serial prefix separately from the ordinary issued note with an AB prefix.

The full polymer conversion then ran denomination by denomination: the $5 in 1992, the $10 in 1993, the $20 in 1994, the $50 in 1995 and the $100 in 1996, the dates PMG's catalogue assigns to each first polymer issue. PMG records the first polymer $5 with a date of 7 July 1992. If you want the wider argument about substrates, our guide to polymer versus paper banknotes covers what changes for a collector.

What is the Next Generation Banknote series?

The Next Generation Banknote series is Australia's eighth complete series, issued between 2016 and 2020. Each note carries a top to bottom clear window, a rolling colour effect, a flying bird, and a raised tactile feature so that people who are blind or have low vision can tell the denominations apart by touch.

The Reserve Bank released the series one denomination at a time: the $5 on 1 September 2016, the $10 on 20 September 2017, the $50 on 18 October 2018, the $20 on 9 October 2019 and the $100 on 29 October 2020 (Reserve Bank of Australia). Because the rollout finished so recently, first-prefix examples of each denomination are still findable in uncirculated condition, which makes this the easiest complete Australian series to assemble well.

Australian banknote series at a glance

Australian collecting organises neatly by era. The table below sets out the main periods, the denominations that belong to each, and what a collector is actually buying when they choose that lane.

What are Australian banknotes worth?

Most Australian notes are affordable, and condition decides nearly everything. The table below gives catalogue values in US dollars from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026, at three points on the grading ladder: Very Good 8, Very Fine 20 and Uncirculated 60.

Read that table sideways and the lesson is obvious. A circulated 1960s ten shillings note is pocket money, while the same design with a star suffix in the serial number is a serious purchase, and the gap widens with every grade you climb. That is the pattern behind star notes and replacement notes in every country, and Australia is one of the cleanest places to see it. The catalogue numbers in the middle column are Pick numbers, the standard world reference explained in our guide to Pick numbers.

Catalogue values are a starting point, not a quote. What an individual note brings depends on eye appeal, centring, the exact signature pair, and whether it has been graded independently. Our page on what determines banknote value unpacks the rest.

How do you start collecting Australian banknotes?

Pick one era, learn its signature combinations, then decide whether you want raw notes or certified ones. Australia's monetary history is compact and thoroughly catalogued, so a beginner can complete a meaningful set rather than collecting scraps of many countries at once.

Three lanes work well. The Reserve Bank pound notes of 1960 and 1961 give you four pre-decimal denominations that are genuinely obtainable. The first decimal series gives you the Gordon Andrews designs and the retired paper $1 and $2. The polymer notes give you the 1988 world first plus two complete modern series. Whichever you choose, learn the grading ladder early, because it is the single biggest driver of price: our banknote grading guide explains the 1 to 70 scale used by PMG and PCGS, and our graded versus raw comparison covers when certification is worth paying for. The banknote glossary defines prefixes, replacement notes and the rest of the vocabulary.

If Australia draws you in, the neighbouring fields are close by. New Zealand ran a parallel decimal changeover and also moved to polymer, so a New Zealand collection pairs naturally with an Australian one, and Queen Elizabeth II appears across both, a theme our page on Queen Elizabeth II banknotes follows across the Commonwealth.

Where can you buy Australian banknotes?

Buy from an established, source-first dealer that authenticates every note, documents where it came from, and backs it in writing. Prices well below every other seller, no stated sourcing, no returns and pressure to decide quickly are the warning signs worth walking away from.

Planet Banknote sources notes direct from mints, central banks and authorized distributors rather than reselling anonymous lots. You can browse the current stock through the banknotes by country directory, and higher-value pieces certified by a third party sit in the graded banknotes selection. If you are weighing sellers in general, our guide to buying world banknotes safely sets out what to check before you pay, and how to collect world banknotes covers the first decisions for a new collector.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.