National designs were not allowed to change until the end of 2008, unless a monarch (whose portrait usually appears on the coins) died or abdicated.

As the EU's membership has since expanded (in 2004 and 2007), with further expansions envisaged, the common face of all euro coins from the value of 10 cent and above was redesigned in 2007 to show a new map.

But new national coin designs were added in 2007 with the entry of Slovenia, in 2008 with Cyprus and Malta, in 2009 with Slovakia, in 2011 with Estonia, in 2014 with Latvia, in 2015 with Lithuania, and in 2023 with Croatia.

Six fine lines cut diagonally behind the globe from each side of the coin and have twelve stars at their ends (reflective of the flag of Europe).

Austria, Germany and Greece will at some point need to update their designs to comply with guidelines requiring them to include the issuing state's name or initial, and to not repeat the denomination of the coin.

The one- and two-cent coins were initially introduced in order to ensure that the introduction of the euro was not used as an excuse by retailers to heavily round up prices.

However, due to the cost to business and the mints of maintaining a circulation of low value coins, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia round prices to the nearest five cent (Swedish rounding) for cash payments, producing only a handful of those coins for collectors rather than general circulation.

[4] According to a Eurobarometer survey of EU citizens, 64% across the Eurozone want their removal with prices rounded; with over 70% in Belgium, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia.