Last updated: September 2026

What currency did Belgium use before the euro?

Belgium used the Belgian franc. The country adopted the franc in 1830, following the French model for economic and political reasons, and kept it until euro cash arrived. For the first twenty years the notes in Belgian pockets came from competing commercial banks rather than from a central bank, which is the problem the National Bank of Belgium was created to solve.

The National Bank itself explains the mess. Between 1830 and 1850 the Société Générale, the Banque de Belgique, the Banque Liégeoise and the Bank of Flanders all printed banknotes, and during the economic crisis of 1848 a great many banks found themselves in difficulty. Two of them, the Société Générale and the Banque de Belgique, had their notes given legal tender status that year as an emergency measure. It soon became clear that it would be better to entrust a single institution with banknote printing (NBB Museum).

Belgium also spent sixty years inside a shared coinage system. France, Italy and Switzerland joined forces with Belgium in 1865 to create the Latin Monetary Union, which was not officially dissolved until 1926 (National Bank of Belgium, 1830 to 1914). That is one reason Belgian and French material of the period sits so comfortably together, and why our hub on French banknotes covers much of the same ground.

When did the National Bank of Belgium issue its first banknotes?

On 2 January 1851. The bank was founded by the law of 5 May 1850, signed by Leopold I on the initiative of finance minister Hubert Frère-Orban, and it opened its doors on 2 January 1851. On that very same day a first series of banknotes was put into circulation.

That first provisional series had five denominations: 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 francs. The notes were black letterpress work with a lightly coloured guilloche pattern on the reverse, printed on handmade paper from the De Meurs mill, and each one was signed and numbered by hand, because the governor's own signature was what persuaded the public to trust the paper at all. The designer Léopold Wiener supplied allegorical cherubs for industry, science, peace and justice, together with figures of Mercury for commerce and Ceres for agriculture (NBB Museum).

Unlike most banknotes issued before them, the 1851 notes say Royaume de Belgique outright, and they carry the coat of arms and the national motto L'Union fait la force. This was a young country announcing itself on its own paper, the pattern our page on the first banknotes in Europe traces across the continent.

One date often gets skipped. The National Bank's notes did not become legal tender in 1851: that came in 1873, when the bank received its right of issue, and the institution only took its present name in 1900 (National Bank of Belgium, 175 years). The first Dutch inscriptions appeared on coins in 1886 and on notes in 1887, so a bilingual Belgian note is later than that by definition.

What happened to Belgian banknotes in the two world wars?

Both occupations broke the National Bank's monopoly. In the First World War the German occupier punished the bank for moving its banknotes and gold to London by withdrawing its issuing privileges and handing them to the Société Générale, which produced banknotes bearing its own name. Between 1914 and 1918 banknote circulation doubled, the economy stagnated and inflation took off.

Ordinary towns filled the gap themselves. More than 800 Belgian municipalities began to issue their own emergency money, or Notgeld, to cope with the monetary difficulties (National Bank of Belgium, 1914 to 1944). That material is a collecting field on its own, and our page on Notgeld emergency money explains how it is catalogued.

The second war did the same damage by a different route. Between 1940 and 1944 the money supply tripled and the economy was in tatters. The answer was brutally effective: the 1944 operation named for Gutt withdrew the existing banknotes and exchanged them only up to certain amounts, cutting circulation from 165 billion to 57 billion francs. Our page on wartime occupation and military currency sets the Belgian case next to what happened elsewhere in occupied Europe.

What was the belga?

The belga was a second Belgian currency unit introduced in 1926, printed on the notes alongside the franc. It was created to distinguish the Belgian franc from the French franc and to help stabilise the value of the country's currency, and it is the reason so many interwar Belgian notes carry two numbers.

For collectors the belga is the single most useful dating clue on interwar Belgian paper. The National Bank says the words belga and franc coexisted on coins and banknotes between 1926 and 1944, so a note stating both values belongs inside that window. The 1929 10,000 franc note is the clearest example, recorded by the bank as 10,000 francs and 2,000 belgas. Another interwar first is easy to date: immediately after the First World War the National Bank decided, in a show of patriotism, to put the portraits of the reigning sovereign, King Albert I and his wife, on banknotes for the first time.

The 1930s were not kind to the unit. In 1935 Belgium devalued again, the third devaluation since the outbreak of the First World War (National Bank of Belgium, 1914 to 1944). The belga did not survive the second war as a working idea, and post-war notes went back to plain franc denominations, which is the sort of quiet disappearance our page on currencies that no longer exist collects.

Who is on the last Belgian franc banknotes?

The final Belgian series, issued from 1994 onwards, pays tribute to well-known artists and cultural figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The National Bank lists the six notes as James Ensor on the 100 francs, Adolphe Sax on the 200, René Magritte on the 500, Constant Permeke on the 1,000, Victor Horta on the 2,000 and King Albert II with Queen Paola on the 10,000.

The bank publishes the year each denomination appeared, and they did not arrive in denomination order: the 2,000 francs with Victor Horta came first in 1994, then the 100 francs with James Ensor in 1995, the 200 francs with Adolphe Sax in 1996, the 1,000 francs with Constant Permeke and the 10,000 francs with Albert II and Paola in 1997, and the 500 francs with René Magritte last, in 1998 (National Bank of Belgium, Belgian franc banknotes). The same six portraits appear in the European Central Bank's own record of the pre-euro Belgian notes (European Central Bank).

The series before it is easier to describe and harder to love. From the early 1960s the National Bank's banknotes abandoned allegorical scenes in favour of major figures from Belgian history (National Bank of Belgium, 1945 to 2002). In the 1964 to 1966 issue the 20 franc note shows King Baudouin I with the Brussels Atomium on the back and the 50 franc note, Pick 139, shows Baudouin I with Queen Fabiola and the Parliament building in Brussels on the reverse, while the 100 franc note of the 1961 to 1971 issue, Pick 134, carries Lambert Lombard with an allegorical figure on the reverse. All three are watermarked with Baudouin I (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read September 2026).

Belgian banknote series at a glance

The table groups the Belgian franc into the families collectors actually buy. Years are the issue dates recorded by the National Bank of Belgium and, for the 1960s notes, by the catalog.

Series and dates from the National Bank of Belgium's own currency history pages and its list of Belgian franc banknotes, with catalog detail for the 1960s notes from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide.

What happened to the Belgian franc at the euro changeover?

Euro notes and coins were introduced on 1 January 2002 and the withdrawal of the Belgian franc began at once. In Belgium the period of dual circulation of the euro and the national currency ended on 28 February 2002, so the franc had a working life of just under two months alongside the new money.

What matters now is that the story did not end there. The National Bank of Belgium still exchanges Belgian franc banknotes, and it sets no deadline. The bank says all banknotes it issued after 1944 can still be exchanged, along with a few rare denominations issued before 1944 and certain notes denominated in both francs and belgas, at its Central Cash Office counters in Brussels or by post. It also states plainly that Belgian franc coins cannot be exchanged, and that Belgian notes of 20 to 50 francs issued by the Treasury rather than by the bank fall outside the arrangement (National Bank of Belgium).

The European Central Bank records the same open-ended position: there is no time limit for exchanging Belgian franc banknotes for euro (European Central Bank). That is why crisp Belgian notes keep surfacing from drawers and why the survival rate in high grade is so much better than for countries that set a hard deadline. The wider changeover is covered in our history of the euro banknotes, and the German comparison sits in our Germany hub.

What are old Belgian franc banknotes worth?

Almost everything depends on age and condition, and the divide is sharp. Nineteenth-century Belgian notes are genuinely scarce because they were large-denomination instruments used for serious transactions, while the post-war notes were printed in large quantities and survive easily.

The catalog shows how quickly a variety can change the answer. In the 1961 to 1971 hundred franc issue, Pick 134a and 134b are catalogued at $4 in Very Fine, $4 in Extremely Fine and $13 in About Uncirculated, while Pick 134c, the series 3000 printing coated with plastic, is catalogued at $15, $25 and $75 in the same three grades (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read September 2026). Same portrait, same denomination, several times the catalog value, decided by a signature combination and a coating.

Learn the signature pairs before the portraits, because the catalog splits Belgian issues by signature far more often than by design. Our guides to Pick numbers and what determines banknote value cover the rest. Catalog values are a reference point, not a quote.

How do you start collecting Belgian banknotes?

Start with the 1994 to 1998 artist series. It is six notes, it is fully documented by the issuing bank, the designs are the most attractive Belgium ever produced, and enough uncirculated examples survive that a complete set in high grade is a realistic project rather than a decade-long hunt.

From there the field opens in two directions. One is backwards into the post-war portrait notes, where the reward is variety hunting: the same 100 franc design exists in ordinary and plastic-coated printings under different Pick letters. The other is the interwar belga material, where every note with two values printed on it is a small record of a country trying to hold its currency steady between two wars.

Whichever route you take, learn the grading ladder first. Grades run from Uncirculated down through AU, XF, VF, F, VG and G, and the certified market uses a 1 to 70 scale: our banknote grading guide explains it and graded versus raw banknotes covers when certification earns its cost. How to store banknotes matters for the large nineteenth-century paper.

Where can you buy Belgian banknotes?

Buy from an established dealer that authenticates every note, documents where it came from, and stands behind it in writing. Prices far below every other seller, vague sourcing and no returns are the signals to walk away from.

Planet Banknote sources notes direct from mints, central banks and authorized distributors rather than reselling anonymous lots. Browse the current selection through the banknotes by country directory, where availability changes with what has been sourced, and see third-party certified pieces in the graded banknotes selection. Our guide to buying world banknotes safely and how to collect world banknotes cover the rest.

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.