Netherlands East Indies gulden banknotes

Netherlands East Indies gulden banknotes encompass the paper money issued for circulation throughout the Dutch East Indies from the late colonial era through the transitional post-war period. The territory's earliest recorded paper issues consisted of United East India Company credit letters denominated in rijksdaalders between 1783 and 1811. Following the resumption of direct Dutch administration, Netherlands Indies gulden government credit paper was released in 1815, establishing paper currency denominated in the colonial guilder.

Regular banknote production was predominantly the domain of De Javasche Bank, which issued gulden notes from 1827 to 1842 and again between 1866 and 1948. Throughout most of this timeframe, day-to-day transactions were conducted using metal coinage. Consequently, colonial government notes in lower denominations below five gulden were produced only during severe wartime metal shortages, namely in 1919–1920 and 1939–1940. During the Second World War, the occupying Japanese administration also released paper currency denominated in gulden inscribed with the English title "The Japanese Government" from 1942, before transitioning denomination titles to roepiah in 1943.

Following the war, De Javasche Bank printed a series dated 1946 spanning denominations from 5 to 1,000 gulden, alongside Dutch treasury fractional paper. To bridge gaps between low denominations and the higher bank issues, notes for one-half, one, and two-and-a-half gulden were issued dated 1948, printed in the Netherlands by Johan Enschedé en Zonen. Notes across these issues display allegorical figures and local motifs on the obverse and multilingual denomination panels on the reverse, with transitional notes incorporating both Dutch "gulden" and Indonesian "roepiah" text.