A paper sheet recognition apparatus recognizes whether a paper sheet has a motion thread that is a thread part in which a pattern varies with a viewing angle. The paper sheet recognition apparatus includes multiple light sources that irradiate the paper sheet with lights from corresponding multiple directions, a line sensor that receives reflected light reflected from the paper sheet that is irradiated with the lights from the multiple directions by the light sources, an image processing unit that creates, based on an output signal that is outputted by the line sensor, multiple paper sheet images captured by using the light irradiated by the light source from each direction, and a recognition unit that judges whether the motion thread is present by comparing each image of the thread part included in each of the paper sheet images created by the image processing unit.