Last updated: September 2026

What is the smallest banknote in the world?

The smallest banknote in the world depends on whether you count national currency only. Guinness World Records lists the smallest paper money as the 10 bani note issued by the Ministry of Finance of Romania in 1917, with a printed area of 27.5 by 38 millimeters. Smaller paper circulated, but it was not national currency.

The Romanian note carried King Ferdinand I on one side and the royal coat of arms on the other. Guinness describes it as about one tenth the size of a US dollar bill, which is a fair way to picture it: roughly the footprint of a large postage stamp, with a monarch's portrait engraved into that space.

The smaller category is emergency money. Guinness notes that some German notgeld went below the Romanian note, the smallest being the 1/3 pfennig notes of Passau issued in 1920 and 1921 at 18 by 18.5 millimeters. Notgeld was put out by towns, companies and local institutions rather than by the national issuing authority, which is why records bodies separate it from the national-currency record even though it circulated widely and contributed to the money supply.

The smallest banknotes ever issued, ranked in millimeters

Ranked by paper area from smallest upward, the tiniest paper money on record is the Passau notgeld of the early 1920s, followed by Romania's 1917 10 bani note. Everything else, including ordinary German notgeld, is several times larger. Every row below carries a measurement published by Guinness World Records, the British Museum or the European Central Bank.

Rows are ordered by paper area, smallest first. Rows 8 to 11 are included for scale: two ordinary notgeld notes, the smallest euro denomination in circulation, and a Romanian note of normal format from the same year as the record holder. Museum dimensions are taken from each object record, with the catalog's width figure shown as width and its length or height figure shown as height. Two of the Passau records carry no production date.

Why is Romania's 10 bani the smallest national note?

Romania's 10 bani note of 1917 holds the record because it was issued by a national finance ministry as ordinary currency, at a size no other national issuer has matched. Guinness gives its printed area as 27.5 by 38 millimeters, about one tenth of a US dollar bill, with King Ferdinand I on the face and the royal coat of arms on the reverse.

The context is the same one that produced notgeld across central Europe. Guinness describes European economies in crisis at the end of the First World War, with acute shortages of coins caused by hoarding and by shortages of metal. When the small change disappears, an economy stops working at the level where most transactions happen: a loaf of bread, a tram fare, a newspaper. Printing paper substitutes for coins was the fastest fix available, and the cheapest version of that fix is a very small piece of paper.

Romania was in a particularly hard position in 1917, with more than one issuer putting out paper alongside the Ministry of Finance notes. The British Museum holds 25 bani and 50 bani notes of 1917 from the Banca Generala Romana at 110 by 70 millimeters (British Museum), roughly the size of a modern low-denomination note and more than five times the area of the 10 bani. The contrast within a single country in a single year is a good reminder that note size is a production decision, not a rule.

Why did emergency money shrink?

Emergency money shrank because it was printed to solve a coin shortage, not to last. Notgeld was issued by German towns, companies and local institutions rather than by the national issuing authority, usually in the smallest denominations, and often for a stated redemption date only weeks or months away. Nothing about that brief makes a large note worth the paper.

Three pressures pushed sizes down at once. Paper was rationed, so smaller notes meant more notes per sheet. The denominations were tiny, often one to fifty pfennig, so the design had little to say. And the issue was meant to be temporary, so durability barely mattered. The result is a whole category of paper money that looks like it belongs in a stamp album. Our reference on notgeld and emergency money covers the wider phenomenon, including the towns that turned their issues into small works of art.

For scale, ordinary notgeld was not miniature. Two British Museum specimens from 1922 measure 74 by 55 millimeters for a 5 pfennig note and 75 by 55 millimeters for a 10 pfennig note. That is small but handleable. The Passau issues are a genuine outlier even within notgeld.

How small were the Passau notes?

Passau's notgeld is the smallest paper money documented anywhere. Guinness records the town's 1/3 pfennig notes of 1920 and 1921 at 18 by 18.5 millimeters. British Museum specimens from Passau in denominations of 1 and 3 pfennig measure between 20 by 20 and 21 by 21 millimeters; three of them are catalogued to the 1919 to 1925 period and two carry no production date.

Passau sits on the Bavarian border with Austria, and its notes are square or very nearly so, which is unusual in itself. A square 20 millimeter note is smaller than most postage stamps and thinner than a modern coin. Handling one is the fastest way to understand why so few survive in good condition: there is no margin to grip, so almost every example shows corner wear.

Why do sources disagree about the same note's size?

Sources disagree because they are measuring different things. Records bodies often publish the printed area, the design as it sits on the paper. Museums measure the object in front of them, edge to edge, including any blank margin and any trimming the note has picked up over a century. Both numbers are correct, and they are not the same number.

Romania's 10 bani is the clearest case. Guinness publishes 27.5 by 38 millimeters and explicitly labels it a printed area. The British Museum specimen CIB.14663, dated 1917 and issued in Romania, is catalogued at 44 by 35 millimeters for the whole piece of paper. That gap of roughly six to seven millimeters on each axis is the margin around the design, plus whatever the individual sheet was cut to.

The practical lesson for collectors is to check what a size figure refers to before using it to judge whether a note in hand has been trimmed. A note measuring slightly under a published figure may simply be measured a different way. For a broader comparison of standard note formats by country and denomination, see our banknote sizes chart.

What is the smallest banknote in circulation today?

No records body publishes a current smallest-in-circulation title, so the honest answer is that there is no verified global record for it. Among major currencies the euro sets a clear floor: the European Central Bank gives the 5 euro note of the first series, issued on 1 January 2002, as 120 by 62 millimeters, the smallest euro denomination.

That is still more than six times the area of a Passau notgeld note. Modern circulating notes have a practical minimum, because they need room for security features, machine-readable elements, tactile marks for blind and partially sighted users, and a serial number. Nothing in the 20 millimeter range could carry any of that. The tiny notes on this page belong to a moment when speed mattered more than every one of those requirements.

How do you collect and store tiny notes?

Collect tiny notes by issue rather than one at a time, and store them in rigid sleeves sized close to the note. Notgeld was issued in series by town, so a Passau set or a themed run from a single issuer tells a far better story than scattered singles, and complete series in matching condition are harder to assemble than the low prices suggest.

Storage is where small notes get damaged. In a standard currency sleeve a 20 millimeter note slides, and sliding is abrasion. Use a small rigid holder or a purpose-made mini sleeve, keep the note flat, and avoid anything with adhesive. Grading services will encapsulate non-standard formats, and our banknote grading guide explains how the 1 to 70 scale is applied; for handling and materials, see how to store banknotes.

If the German end of this story interests you, Planet Banknote carries period issues in its Germany banknotes collection, and the wider banknotes by country catalog is the place to browse by issuer. For the opposite extreme, our companion reference covers the largest banknotes ever printed.

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.