Japan to Issue Newly-designed Banknotes Starting 2024

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:00 JST, June 24, 2023

Newly-designed banknotes will enter circulation from July 2024, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The Finance Ministry announced in 2019 that new ¥10,000, ¥5,000 and ¥1,000 notes would change sometime between April and September 2024.

The last time the Bank of Japan revamped the designs of all of the denominations was in 2004.

The National Printing Bureau began printing the new banknotes in September 2021.

The new ¥10,000 note features Eiichi Shibusawa, a pioneering industrialist known as the “father of Japanese capitalism,” while the new ¥5,000 note features Umeko Tsuda, founder of Tsuda University, and the ¥1,000 note features Shibasaburo Kitasato, a bacteriologist.

The new banknotes include anti-forgery technology that is being used for the first time in the world.