Reporting snapshot · 5 November 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The cabinet took the decision on the evening of Wednesday, 4 November, and the Prime Minister's Office released its statement afterwards. No date has been set for the Rs10 banknote to stop being legal tender, no exchange deadline has been announced, and two accounts of the same meeting circulated on 4 November, one of which said the note would be retained.
What the cabinet approved
Pakistan’s federal cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Wednesday evening, 4 November, approved the introduction of a Rs10 coin to replace the existing Rs10 banknote and, separately, approved the designs of a new series of currency notes. The decisions followed a recommendation from the Ministry of Finance, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, which Profit by Pakistan Today reproduced in full. The Express Tribune reported that the cabinet “also approved the introduction of a Rs10 coin to replace the existing Rs10 banknote”, alongside approval of the new note designs.
The statement said the cabinet had been given a detailed briefing on the new currency notes: proposals had been solicited from artists and designers across the country, and a cabinet committee set up by the prime minister had held consultations with stakeholders before finalising its recommendations. The new notes are to carry stronger anti-counterfeiting security features and to be printed on modern materials meant to lengthen their working life, Geo News reported. Pakistan Today carried the Prime Minister’s Office handout in Urdu, which records the decision to introduce a ten-rupee coin in place of the ten-rupee banknote.
Cash was one item on a long cabinet agenda that also ratified the Pakistan-Kuwait defence cooperation agreement and moved the powers of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister to the provincial governor.
Why the Rs10 note is being replaced
The move follows a proposal the State Bank of Pakistan put to Parliament in August. Deputy Governor Dr Inayat Hussain told the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue that the central bank had proposed withdrawing the Rs10 banknote after the introduction of the new currency series, that roughly a year would be needed to bring the redesigned notes into circulation, and that officials had told the committee printing a Rs5,000 banknote cost approximately Rs14, Profit reported. Geo News reported that the deputy governor had also told the committee the bank had made two previous attempts to discontinue the denomination.
The State Bank’s own published position shows how unusual the Rs10 note is. On its currency pages, the bank lists the banknotes that are current legal tender under Section 25 of the State Bank of Pakistan Act 1956: Rs10, Rs20, Rs50, two Rs75 commemorative notes, Rs100, Rs500 with and without the Optic Variable Identifier, Rs1,000 and Rs5,000. The series the bank introduced in 2005 began with the Rs20 note and went on to cover Rs50, Rs100, Rs500, Rs1,000 and Rs5,000, which leaves the Rs10 as the smallest paper denomination still in circulation never carried into that series, according to the State Bank’s currency guide.
The coin that replaces it is not a new idea. The State Bank issued a Rs10 coin on 24 October 2016: yellow, round, 25.5 millimetres across and weighing 5.50 grams, with the Faisal Mosque on the reverse, and the bank says regular coins of Rs10, Rs5, Rs2 and Re1 are in issue, according to its currency guide. A coin is the natural form for the smallest denomination that changes hands most often, because it survives years in a pocket and in a cash drawer that a folded, crumpled note does not.
The new currency series
The redesign has been running for years. The State Bank began designing a new series in January 2024 and opened an art competition in March 2024, Profit reported. The bank’s published competition terms cover the seven paper denominations from Rs10 to Rs5,000, with a jury of artists shortlisting six designs for each denomination for the bank to choose from, and set out themes that included social and cultural identities, demographic diversity, climate change and environmental protection, economic development, natural landscapes, architectural heritage and national symbols.
Printing capacity is being prepared alongside the designs: Security Papers Limited awarded a Rs3.4 billion paper machine upgrade to the German firm Giesecke+Devrient in March 2025, a project expected to be completed within eighteen months, Profit reported.
What happens to the note in circulation
Nothing changes for a holder today. The cabinet statement set no date for the Rs10 banknote to stop being legal tender and announced no exchange deadline, Geo noted. The State Bank has said any decision to withdraw a denomination would be formally communicated to the public with adequate time for exchanging the notes, which is the position it took in September 2026 when it dismissed reports that the Rs10 note had already been discontinued.
Two accounts of the same cabinet decision were published on 4 November and they do not agree. Pakistan Today reported that the cabinet had decided to retain the denomination, so that the Rs10 banknote would continue to remain legal tender and stay in circulation. The Prime Minister’s Office statement issued after the meeting says the opposite in one line, approving a ten-rupee coin in place of the banknote. Both accounts agree that the cabinet reviewed the central bank’s proposal. The cabinet’s own statement is the formal record, and because it sets no date, the note stays legal tender in the meantime.
Why it matters
The Rs10 is the note that moves through an ordinary day: change from a shop, a bus fare, a small vendor’s cash box. Moving that denomination into coin form changes what people and traders handle every day without altering what anything is worth. It is not a redenomination and it does not change the value of savings.
It is also the first visible output of a currency redesign that has been running since 2024, with redesigned notes for the remaining denominations still to come. Separately, the State Bank has been tightening monetary policy, raising its policy rate to 12 per cent on 26 October, as KhabarWire reported. Interest rates and currency management are different levers, but both come from the same institution in the same month, and the rate decision will shape how quickly the new cash reaches pockets.
What is still uncertain
The immediate gap is the timetable. No date has been given for the withdrawal of the note, no exchange deadline, and no schedule for when the redesigned notes will enter circulation, Profit noted. It is also unclear whether the Rs10 coin that replaces the note will be the 2016 design already in circulation or a new one drawn for the series, and which denominations the new series will carry: the statement does not list them, and the State Bank’s competition covered seven paper denominations including the Rs10.
Until the State Bank publishes a formal withdrawal notice with an exchange period, the Rs10 note remains legal tender. Other countries have managed changes of this kind by giving holders months of warning and redemption, as Bulgaria did when it adopted the euro, and the shape of that process here is what readers in Pakistan will be watching for.
