Following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands, the Belgian franc was adopted in 1839 and circulated in Luxembourg until 1842 and again from 1848.

In August 1993, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism expanded its intervention margin to 15% to accommodate speculation against the French franc and other currencies.

As a contingency measure against the pressure this generated on European currencies, the Finance Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, secretly had a new series of Luxembourg franc notes printed.

As a security measure, the notes depicted Grand Duchess Charlotte, who had died in 1985.

Besides Juncker, only Grand Duke Jean and Prime Minister Jacques Santer were aware of the scheme.

Old franc coins and notes lost their legal tender status on 1 March 2002.

[citation needed] With a few early exceptions, the coins were identical in size, shape, and composition.

Many earlier dates changed frequently with larger denominations often being single year designs.

Before the First World War, notes were issued by the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) and the National Bank, denominated in Thaler, Mark and, occasionally, francs, with an exchange rate of 1 franc = 80 Pfennig (the relative gold standards would have implied a rate of 1 franc = 81 Pfennig) used on bi-currency notes.

The first series was denominated in francs and Mark but these were the last Luxembourg notes to feature the German currency.

In 1919, a second series of State Treasury notes was issued, with new denominations of 50 centimes and 500 francs.

In 1985, the Institut Monétaire Luxembourgeois took over paper money issuance from the government and issued the first post-war 1000-franc notes (€24.79).