Parvovirus B19 is the exclusive human pathogen of the Erythrovirus genus. In classical view, the B19 DNA sequence shows little variability, with no disease-specific or tissue type specific associations. We examined skin biopsies from patients with B19-unrelated skin disease or from constitutionally healthy adults by polymerase chain reaction assays for four different genomic regions of the B19 virus. Sequencing showed that the skin-derived viral DNA differed within the protein-coding region from the B19 reference sequences by 10.8% and from the V9 variant by 8.6% and within the noncoding region (covering nucleotides 189-435 of the promoter region) by 26.5 and 17.2%, respectively. Despite this sequence difference, the promoter region was shown by a luciferase gene expression assay to be biologically active. We have detected a new B19 virus genotype, K71, which differs extensively from the known B19-virus genotypes and is persistently carried in human skin.