Five-cent coins and other larger-value circulating coins so far bore the year number 2011 – the year Estonia adopted the euro. Starting this week, however, people will start receiving euro coins with the year 2018 as change from shops.

One and two-cent coins are different from other circulating coins. Coins that have a value of five cents or larger are in active circulation, and more than seven years passed until Eesti Pank had to issue new circulating coins in 2018. But an average of two truckloads of one and two-cent coins are issued each year, because people do get them as change from shops, but then rarely use them again. That is why the central bank believes it is time to talk about reducing the use of one and two-cent coins in Estonia.

This year, Eesti Pank issued more of all circulating coins that now bear the year 2018: one, two, five, ten, twenty and fifty-cent coins as well as one and two-euro coins.

A total of 3,960,000 circulating coins have been minted. Earlier this year, Eesti Pank released two-euro commemorative coins with a special design: 485,000 coins dedicated to the centenary of the Baltic states were issued, while 1,312,800 coins were minted to celebrate the centenary of the Republic of Estonia. Altogether 15,500,000 two, five and twenty-cent coins will be minted by the end of the year.

Circulating coins are released into circulation as the need arises through commercial banks, who in turn supply retail businesses. Small amounts of new coins can be purchased over the coming weeks from the Eesti Pank museum shop and the Omniva online shop.