In brief

  • The National Bank of Romania is issuing, from 14 September 2026, a collector banknote with a face value of 100 lei, dedicated to Eugeniu Carada, the man who laid the foundations of the central bank, 190 years after his birth. Alongside it comes a special sheet, a single uncut sheet carrying 4 such banknotes.
  • The banknote has the same dimensions as the 100 lei note in your wallet, 147 by 82 millimetres, is blue, is printed on polymer and has a vertical transparent window carrying Carada’s portrait. Over two pages the circular describes the security features: a watermark showing the „Trecerea Dunării” decoration, a magnetic thread with the microtext „CARADA” readable from four directions, ink shifting from gold to green, laser microperforations.
  • The published act says nothing about the price or the print run. Both figures exist, but only in the National Bank’s press release: 16,000 banknotes at 240 lei each and 1,000 sheets at 840 lei, with sales starting on 15 September. Anyone reading only the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) learns that the banknote is issued on 14 September and that it is legal tender, meaning it can be used in payment, at its value of 100 lei.
Act: Circular of the National Bank of Romania No. 24 of 4 September 2026 on the issue into the numismatic circuit of a commemorative banknote for collection with a face value of 100 lei, on the theme of Eugeniu Carada, the founder of the National Bank of Romania, 190 years since his birth, and of a special sheet made up of 4 commemorative banknotes for collection with a face value of 100 lei
Published: Official Gazette of Romania No. 772 of 11 September 2026
In force from: 11 September 2026, the date of publication

The National Bank of Romania is putting on sale a 100 lei banknote intended not for payments but for collectors’ display cases. Circular No. 24 of 4 September 2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 772 of 11 September 2026, issues into the numismatic circuit a commemorative banknote on the theme of Eugeniu Carada, 190 years after the birth of the central bank’s founder, plus a special sheet carrying four such banknotes, uncut. Printing is done at Imprimeria Băncii Naționale a României, the state-owned company that produces the country’s banknotes and whose 2026 budget, approved by Government Decision No. 661/2026, provides for revenue of 160.9 million lei and a production plan of around 320 million units.

The numismatic circuit means something other than the ordinary circulation of money. A circulation banknote reaches the public through banks, at its face value, and its purpose is payment. A collector banknote is sold at the central bank’s counters, at a price higher than the value written on it, and its purpose is to be kept. The difference between the price and the face value covers the cost of the special printing, the packaging and, to a large extent, the rarity.

Eugeniu Carada was born in Craiova in 1836 and died in Bucharest in 1910, years that are printed on the banknote itself, under the portrait, in the form „EUGENIU CARADA 1836-1910”. He studied in Paris, drew close to the leaders of the liberal movement and, after the National Bank was founded in 1880, took direct charge of organising the printing of money, including bringing the necessary machinery into the country. He is recognised as the founder of the institution, although he refused the post of governor. The 190th anniversary follows exactly from the dates printed on the banknote: 2026 minus 1836.

What is being issued, under Article 1 of the circular, are two distinct products. The first is the 100 lei commemorative banknote, printed on a polymer substrate. The second is the special sheet, a single sheet carrying four commemorative 100 lei banknotes on the same theme. Article 5 says the individual banknote is sold in a presentation folder with text in Romanian, English and French, while the sheet comes with a certificate of authenticity, both in a personalised envelope.

The physical description takes up Article 2. The banknote measures 147 by 82 millimetres, with a tolerance of one millimetre, exactly the size of the 100 lei note in circulation. The predominant colour is blue, the technique is mixed, offset and intaglio, and the vertical transparent window contains Carada’s portrait in multitone technique and an element in optically variable magnetic ink, marked in the act as OVMI (SPARK).

The front carries Carada’s portrait and signature and an image of the Counter Hall in the National Bank’s Old Palace, over which is superimposed an eagle bearing a shield ornamented with the bank’s logo, the coat of arms of Romania and the signatures of the governor and of the chief cashier. The face value appears four times, in figures and in words. The issue date, „14 septembrie 2026”, is printed vertically on the right. The reverse shows the bank’s Old Palace, the Council Chamber in the background and the classic warning found on Romanian money: „FALSIFICAREA ACESTOR BILETE SE PEDEPSEȘTE CONFORM LEGILOR”, the counterfeiting of these notes is punishable by law.

Article 3 lists the security features anyone can check without equipment. The polymer substrate contains two watermarks, one showing the obverse of the „Trecerea Dunării” decoration, awarded to Carada by King Carol I, the other the bank’s logo, both visible when the banknote is held up to the light. In the same place sits a magnetic security thread carrying, in negative, the microtext „CARADA”, readable from four different directions. In the transparent window, an element printed in optically variable ink changes colour from gold to green when the banknote is tilted. On both sides there are laser microperforations showing the figure „100”, a latent image with the inscription „BNR” on the reverse and an element in which front and back complete each other when the banknote is held up to the light. A graphic element in the window, inspired by the first 20 lei banknote issued by the bank in 1881, glows yellow and blue under ultraviolet light.

Article 4 adds what can be seen only with special equipment: continuously printed microtexts, „BNR100” to the left of the portrait, „BANCANATIONALAAROMANIEI” above the bank’s name, „ROMANIA” behind the image of the palace, a stamp-like image glowing yellowish green under ultraviolet light, and serial numbers with different luminescence, orange horizontally and yellowish green vertically.

What it changes in practice

The circular is an act of an autonomous administrative authority, issued under Article 48 of Law No. 312/2004 on the Statute of the National Bank of Romania, the text giving the bank the power to issue binding regulations, orders, norms and circulars. It therefore enters into force on the date of publication, 11 September 2026. The issue into the numismatic circuit itself, however, begins three days later, on 14 September, a date fixed by Article 1 and printed on the banknote.

The second effect is the one in Article 6: the commemorative banknotes are legal tender on the territory of Romania. This is not a decorative formula. Under Article 16 of Law No. 312/2004, banknotes issued and not withdrawn by the bank must be accepted at face value in payment of all public and private obligations. A shop cannot refuse a Carada banknote, but neither will it take it for more than 100 lei, however much it cost at the counter.

The third effect concerns access. Article 7 limits sales to six regional branches of the central bank: Bucharest, Cluj, Constanța, Dolj, Iași and Timiș. The act provides for no other distribution network, so the banknote cannot be bought from a commercial bank, from the post office or from a shop. The Dolj branch means Craiova, the town where Carada was born, and the Timiș branch means Timișoara.

The fourth effect belongs to the commercial calendar and is not visible in the act. The National Bank’s press release of 7 September 2026 announces that sales actually begin on 15 September, one day after the issue date in the circular, and that the online reservation pages go live the same day, at 9:00 a.m., within the limits of the stock allocated to reservations. If the stock set aside for online reservations runs out, buying remains possible directly at the counter, without a reservation.

The fifth effect does not occur at all, even though it is the one most readers are looking for. The act contains no price, no print run and no purchase limit. All three are announced only by press release, so they do not carry the legal force of an act published in the Official Gazette of Romania.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The issue resembles its predecessor strikingly, and the comparison says more than the act itself. Through Circular No. 54 of 22 November 2024, the central bank issued on 1 December 2024 another commemorative 100 lei collector banknote, also on polymer, on the theme of 185 years since the birth of King Carol I, also through the same six regional branches. The structure of the two acts is identical: seven articles, in the same order, with the same headings, from characteristics to legal tender status.

The first change of substance is the special sheet. The 2024 circular issued a single banknote, and its Article 7 spoke only of „these banknotes”. The 2026 circular issues two products, and Articles 1 and 7 expressly mention the sheet made up of 4 banknotes. It is a new product in the bank’s numismatic range for the 100 lei face value.

The second change, by far the most important for a buyer, appears in neither of the two circulars. The maximum print run of the 2024 Carol I issue was 30,000 banknotes, at a sale price of 150 lei, excluding VAT, with the folder included. The print run of the Carada issue is 16,000 individual banknotes and 1,000 sheets, and the price is 240 lei for the banknote and 840 lei for the sheet, this time with VAT included. The two prices cannot be compared directly, because one is announced without tax and the other with tax, but the direction is clear on both counts: fewer banknotes, higher price.

The third change has to do with what has not changed. Neither the 2024 circular nor the 2026 one contains the print run or the price. The absence is not a momentary slip but the central bank’s settled practice: the normative act describes the object, while the commercial terms stay in the press release. A reader searching the Official Gazette of Romania for the answer to „how much does it cost” will not find it now, and did not find it in past issues either.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The description of the security features is detailed and public. Anyone receiving such a banknote can check the watermark, the thread with the microtext „CARADA”, the shift of colour from gold to green and the microperforations, using the text in the Official Gazette of Romania itself.
  • The dimensions are identical to those of the 100 lei circulation note, 147 by 82 millimetres, so the item fits any wallet, album or standard collector sleeve, with no special accessories.
  • The legal tender status provided for in Article 6 offers a safety net: at worst, the banknote remains good money worth 100 lei, not a mere collector’s piece with no exchange value.
  • The presentation folder is written in Romanian, English and French, which makes the issue usable on the international collectors’ market as well, where Romanian polymer issues are sought after.
  • The special sheet of 4 banknotes is a format collectors value, because it keeps the banknotes uncut, and the certificate of authenticity accompanying it settles the question of provenance from the start.
  • The theme has real historical backing, not merely decorative: the „Trecerea Dunării” decoration, the Old Palace headquarters and the reference to the first 20 lei banknote of 1881 tie the issue to the institution’s actual beginnings.

What remains a problem

  • The published act contains neither the price nor the print run, that is, exactly the two pieces of information that decide whether the trip to the counter is worth making. They appear only in the bank’s press release, which does not carry the legal force of a normative act.
  • The date in the circular and the date of sale do not coincide. The act says 14 September 2026, the press release says sales begin on 15 September. Anyone going by the Official Gazette of Romania turns up at the counter a day early.
  • The six branches cover six counties. A collector in Suceava, Brașov or Sibiu has to travel or catch the online reservation, and the online reservation is not provided for in the act, only announced.
  • The gap between price and face value is wide. The banknote sells for 240 lei and is worth 100 lei as a means of payment, so anyone who changes their mind and spends it loses 140 lei.
  • Nowhere in the act is there a limit on how many items one buyer may take, nor any rule on how stock is shared out between branches. With a small print run, that leaves room for a quick sell-out and for resale at a mark-up.
  • The act does not say what happens to unsold items, nor whether the issue can be topped up. With no print run written into the act, the limited character of the issue rests on a press release, not on a rule.

Practical advice

  1. If you want to buy, go in person or online on 15 September 2026, not on the 14th. The date of 14 September in the circular is the date of issue into the numismatic circuit, while sales actually begin, according to the central bank’s press release, the following day, with online reservations open from 9:00 a.m.
  2. Choose between the banknote and the sheet knowing the arithmetic. At 240 lei each, four separate banknotes cost 960 lei, while the sheet of four costs 840 lei, that is 210 lei per banknote. The sheet works out cheaper per item, but the banknotes on it are uncut and lose part of their collector value if you separate them.
  3. Do not confuse face value with price. The banknote is legal tender for 100 lei, and Article 16 of Law No. 312/2004 requires it to be accepted at that value for any public or private obligation. Nobody is obliged to take it from you at the 240 lei you paid for it.
  4. Check the item on the spot, using the text of Article 3 of the circular itself. Look for the two watermarks, hold the banknote up to the light for the front-to-back registration, tilt it to see the shift from gold to green and read the microtext „CARADA” on the security thread, which has to be readable from four directions.
  5. Keep the folder, the personalised envelope and, for the sheet, the certificate of authenticity. On the collectors’ market, an item without its original packaging and certificate sells noticeably worse than a complete one.
  6. If you miss the issue, do not rush into a purchase on the secondary market in the first few days. The previous issue, Carol I of December 2024, had almost double the print run, and resale prices usually settle once the initial wave of demand has passed.
  7. The regional branches are those in Bucharest, Cluj, Constanța, Craiova (the Dolj branch), Iași and Timișoara (the Timiș branch). Call ahead to the one you intend to visit, because the act does not provide for how stock is divided between them.

Frequently asked questions

How much do the banknote and the special sheet cost?
The commemorative banknote costs 240 lei, with VAT and the presentation folder included, and the special sheet of 4 banknotes costs 840 lei, with VAT and the certificate of authenticity included. Note, however, that these prices do not appear in the circular published in the Official Gazette of Romania, only in the National Bank’s press release of 7 September 2026.
How many items are being printed?
The approved print run is 16,000 individual commemorative banknotes and 1,000 special sheets, each carrying 4 banknotes, that is a further 4,000 banknotes. In total, 20,000 items, with a combined face value of 2 million lei. This figure too is absent from the act and comes from the press release.
Where can it be bought?
Only through the regional branches of the National Bank of Romania in Bucharest, Cluj, Constanța, Dolj, Iași and Timiș, under Article 7 of the circular. The bank has additionally announced an online reservation system, live from 15 September 2026 at 9:00 a.m., within the stock allocated to it, and anyone who misses the reservation can buy directly at the counter.
Can I pay with it in a shop?
Yes. Article 6 of the circular provides that the commemorative banknotes are legal tender on the territory of Romania, and Article 16 of Law No. 312/2004 requires them to be accepted at face value for any public or private obligation. In practice, though, you would be handing over at the till a banknote you paid 240 lei for in exchange for 100 lei worth of goods.
What does numismatic circuit mean?
It is the channel through which the central bank sells coins and banknotes intended for collecting, at its own counters and at a price higher than the face value. It differs from the ordinary circulation of money, where banknotes reach the public through the banking system, at the value written on them, and are intended for payments.
Who was Eugeniu Carada?
Born in Craiova in 1836 and dead in Bucharest in 1910, he was the man who actually organised the National Bank of Romania after its founding in 1880, including the printing of the first banknotes. He is considered the founder of the institution, although he refused the post of governor. His years of birth and death are printed on the banknote, under the portrait.
How does it differ from the 100 lei note in my wallet?
It has the same dimensions, 147 by 82 millimetres, and the same face value, but it is blue, carries Carada’s portrait, has a vertical transparent window with a multitone portrait and its own set of security features, among them the magnetic thread with the microtext „CARADA” and the „Trecerea Dunării” decoration rendered as a watermark.
Is there a limit on how many one buyer may take?
The circular sets none. The act contains no purchase limit, no rules on how stock is shared out between the six branches and no order of priority between online reservation and counter sales.
Has the bank issued such banknotes before?
Yes. The most recent commemorative 100 lei polymer issue was released on 1 December 2024 through Circular No. 54 of 22 November 2024, on the theme of 185 years since the birth of King Carol I, with a maximum print run of 30,000 banknotes and a price of 150 lei, excluding VAT.
Where can I find the full text of the circular?
In the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 772 of 11 September 2026, pages 15 and 16. The text is also reproduced in full in this article, in the section with the original text of the act.

Editorial analysis

The circular does the job it was written for. It describes the object of the issue with a precision that helps the public, not only the specialist: a reader holding the banknote can work through Article 3 point by point and check its authenticity unaided, without equipment and without asking anyone. For a two-page act, the density of verifiable information is high, and the wording is free of ambiguity.

The problem lies in what is missing. The published act does not say how much it costs, how many items are printed or how many one person may buy. Yet these are precisely the pieces of information that turn a collector banknote into an asset with a market value. Rarity is the main ingredient of the price, and here rarity is set not by a rule but by a press release: 16,000 individual banknotes and 1,000 sheets. A press release can be corrected with no procedure at all, whereas a figure written into the circular could be changed only by a new act, published. A buyer paying 240 lei for an object with a face value of 100 lei is in fact paying for a promise of scarcity that the normative act does not contain.

Comparison with the previous issue shows that this is not an oversight. Circular No. 54 of 22 November 2024, the one on 185 years since the birth of King Carol I, has the same structure of seven articles, the same allocation among branches and the same silence about print run and price. The practice is constant, which means changing it would be an editorial policy decision by the bank, not the correction of an error. It is worth changing precisely because the figures already exist and are approved: the press release announces them in the same week the act appears.

The most interesting figure cannot be seen by reading the circular, only by calculating from the announced data. The 16,000 individual banknotes plus the 4,000 contained in the sheets come to 20,000 items, that is 2 million lei in face value, yet they bring in roughly 4.68 million lei at the announced prices, more than twice their face value. The same calculation throws up a pricing inconsistency the act cannot arbitrate: the sheet costs 840 lei, that is 210 lei per banknote, 30 lei less than the 240 lei charged for an item bought separately. Four banknotes bought one by one cost 960 lei, while the same four banknotes on a single sheet cost 840. The difference of 120 lei is explained nowhere and has no visible basis, all the more so since the sheet comes with a certificate of authenticity on top.

The second observation that takes some work is the relationship with the 2024 issue. The print run falls from 30,000 banknotes to 16,000, almost by half, while the price rises from 150 lei excluding VAT to 240 lei including VAT. The two prices are not directly comparable, but even without the tax adjustment the direction is the same on both variables, and the combined effect is that the Carada banknote starts out as a more expensive and rarer object than its immediate predecessor. For a collector, that changes the calculation; for the central bank, it raises the question whether numismatic issues are conceived as an instrument of financial education and institutional memory, as the theme suggests, or as a source of revenue.

Finally, there is the one-day gap between the normative act and reality. The circular fixes 14 September 2026 as the issue date and prints it on the banknote itself, yet sales begin on 15 September, according to the press release. A reader guided solely by the Official Gazette of Romania arrives at the counter a day early. It is not an internal contradiction in the act, because the circular speaks not of sale but of issue into the numismatic circuit, and the two are not the same thing. It is, however, exactly the kind of gap a well-written act would remove with a single sentence.

What should be changed

  • The approved print run written into the circular, as a separate article. Effect: the limited character of the issue becomes an obligation undertaken in a published act rather than a promise in a press release, and any top-up would require amending the act, so it would be visible to everyone who has already bought.
  • The sale price, with an express statement of whether VAT is included or excluded, provided for in the act as well. Effect: the buyer learns from the Official Gazette of Romania what he is paying, and comparison between successive issues becomes possible without reconstructing the tax treatment of each, as is now the case between the Carol I issue and the Carada one.
  • A limit on items per buyer and a rule on how stock is shared out between the six branches. Effect: a collector outside those six counties has a predictable chance, and clearing the stock in the first few minutes through bulk purchases becomes harder to pull off.
  • An article fixing the date on which sales begin, distinct from the issue date. Effect: the gap between 14 and 15 September disappears, and anyone informing themselves from the official act no longer wastes a journey.
  • Mention in the act of the online reservation and of the stock allocated to it. Effect: the channel that in practice decides who buys is given a legal basis, and the ratio between online stock and counter stock becomes verifiable rather than an internal decision unknown to the public.
  • An explanation of the price difference between the special sheet and the individual banknotes. Effect: the 30 lei less on each banknote in the sheet gains a public justification, and the buyer understands whether he is paying for the packaging, for the certificate or for the rarity.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 772 of 11 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 125 KB the act starts on page 15

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.