How to Exchange Damaged Paper Bills

By Kim Sun-jae, Seoul Yeomchang Elementary School

“My dog ate my homework” is a classic excuse for not doing your homework. But what if your dog ate your money? Damage to paper bills can happen by accidentally ripping, burning, or wetting them, or your canine friend can take a bite out of the valuable pieces of paper. But you can’t just lose it forever. So, how can you get your money back?

Banks provide exchange services for paper bills that have been unfortunately damaged. At least that’s a bit relieving, right? Well, the amount of money you can get back depends on the situation. Here are the compensation standards.

Let’s begin with ripped money. How much money you can get back depends on the portion of the size of the bill remaining. Fortunately, if you have at least three-fourths remaining of the original bill, you can trade it with an undamaged bill of the same value. In other words, you’re safe. However, if you have less than three-fourths and more than two-fifths remaining, you can’t get the full value, but you can get half of it. For example, if you have a 50,000-won bill, you will be able to receive 25,000 won in exchange – but only if it fits those standards. Sadly, if your bill has less than two-fifths left, it no longer has value, which means you cannot exchange it for anything.

But that’s only if you only had one of the ripped pieces. What if you ripped your bill into pieces but still had all of them? In that case, the size of all the pieces of the bill pieced together will determine how much you can get back, according to the same standards. So, make sure you don’t lose the pieces of the ripped bill before going to the bank, since they can still be pieced together.

What about burnt bills? The same standards apply, but interestingly, the ashes can also count as pieces of money, and the amount of ashes can account for the portion left, along with the non-burnt remainder. Therefore, it is most reasonable not to shake off any of the ashes and take it to the bank in a container.

The number of bills and coins discarded in 2024 added up to about 475 million, which can reach 23 times the height of Mount Everest when stacked vertically. Out of these, about 373 million are bills, which is a huge amount. So, let’s try to keep our paper bills safe and undamaged. If you have some damaged paper bills at home, pay a visit to a bank to exchange them.