CHF
CHF
Swiss franc
Official bank or department
Countries
Liechtenstein
Switzerland
Languages
English
French
German
Contact information

Cash Division/Administration
Bundesplatz 1
CH-3003 Berne
Switzerland

Tel.: +41 58 631 07 57
Fax: +41 58 631 50 00
E-mail: bargeld@snb.ch

General information about the reproduction of banknotes

It is forbidden to change parts of the banknotes, as this may confuse the public.

If only part of a banknote is reproduced – for example, the head of the relevant person or a work depicted on the reverse of the banknote – then copyright issues may arise, which fall outside the competence of the Swiss National Bank.

Reproduction in printed media

Reproductions for which we do not see any risk of confusion with genuine banknotes, are defined in our document “Instruction sheet”.

For print media, we supply on loan either digital images of our banknotes (150 dpi) or physical banknotes (both include the word “SPECIMEN” printed diagonally across the banknote). These will be sent only if the reason for wanting to reproduce banknotes is declared and the terms of the “contract” accepted (by sending back the signed letter containing the conditions). Moreover, the passing of these images or banknotes to third parties is strictly prohibited, and all materials provided must be returned to the Swiss National Bank. The users will be responsible for limiting access to these materials.

All negatives, plates, positives, digitised storage media, graphics files, magnetic media, optical storage devices and other devices used in the making of the illustration that contain complete or partial images of the illustration must be destroyed, deleted or erased after their final use.

Reproduction in electronic media

For publicly accessible digital images, a banknote has to meet both of the following criteria:

  • The resolution of the image is 72 dpi or less.
  • The word “SPECIMEN” is printed diagonally across the reproduction in a contrasting colour. The length and width of the word “SPECIMEN” must be at least 75% of the length and 15% of the width of the reproduction respectively.