Why you might start seeing a new face on banknotes from today

Notes with the King's face on will be in circulation - which means they can be used to buy and sell things - from today

Banknotes with King Charles' face on are going to start being used from Wednesday 5 June.

You'll still be able to spend the previous notes, which have former monarch Queen Elizabeth II's face on.

The new banknotes are only being printed to replace any older ones that have become worn.

It'll be pretty difficult to spot the notes for a while - as there's currently over 4 billion banknotes in circulation at the moment, so the amount of new notes will be very small at first.

A new note for King Charles

What do you think of the new notes?

The portrait of Charles will appear on all four banknotes - the £5, £10, £20 and £50 - with no other changes to the currrent designs.

Pictures of the new bank notes were released earlier this year, when they were put into a special exhibition.

King Charles praised them as "very well designed" and expressed his surprise at being only the second monarch to feature on a note.

The first was his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was the previous monarch.

Her image was first used for a £1 paper note in 1960 - even though we had been using paper money long before then.

The Royal Household - which is a term for the Royal Family and people that work for it - said it wanted to reduce the environmental impact of changing the face of the notes, so decided to only change ones that needed replacing.

People will be able to snap up the new look notes at selected Post Office branches.

Where else can you find the King?

If you've got any treacle or golden syrup like this in the cupboard, you might notice a royal logo on the back. This means it's a Royal Warrant Holder - which means the royal family approve for them to use it

As well as banknotes, you can find whoever the monarch is at the time on coins, postboxes and stamps.

Last year, the new coins featuring King Charles' face were released. They're still pretty rare, but there's a chance you could get one.

New stamps were introduced sooner - as they're easier to make than metal coins. They started to be used from 4 April last year.

The King's name can also be found on postboxes, as well as on some foods you might have in the kitchen, such as golden syrup.

These are all still being updated, why not check out a postbox near you to see if it's an old or a new one?

The newer ones say CIIIR - for Charles III - and the older ones say EIIR, for Elizabeth II.

Just like with coins, postboxes are only changed when needed.

The CIIIR logo was put on to any postboxes that were commissioned after Charles became King in 2023.