A U.S. bill is not made of ordinary paper: dollar bills are made of cotton and linen, and the paper has red and blue fibers in it, which help make bills harder to copy. The paper is made for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by a company in Dalton, Massachusetts, and it is illegal for anyone else to have it. A bill weighs about one gram, whatever its value.

Making money hard to copy is an old problem. Benjamin Franklin printed colonial notes with leaf prints, raised patterns cast from real leaves, to make them harder to counterfeit. Colonial paper money in America was legal tender in many colonies, and by one estimate made up 50 to 75 percent of the money in circulation. Before 1869 U.S. bills were printed by private banknote companies. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing began printing the faces and seals that year.

Bills are printed from engraved steel plates: the portrait, scrollwork and numerals are cut as fine lines. In intaglio printing, ink in the grooves of the plate is pressed onto paper under great pressure, giving a slightly raised image. Each BEP intaglio press weighs 57 tons and prints with up to 20 tons of pressure. Bills are printed in layers: offset printing adds background colors first and intaglio adds the engraved layer, so each step builds in security. The ink on the back of a bill dries for three days before the face is printed.

U.S. bills of $10 and higher use color-shifting ink in the lower right corner of the front. A $100 bill has a blue 3-D ribbon where tiny bells change to 100s as you tilt the note, and the ribbon is woven into the paper, not printed on it. It also has a thread inside that shows USA and 100 when held to light, and glows pink under ultraviolet light. Each U.S. denomination has several key security features, such as a 3-D ribbon, a portrait watermark, color-shifting ink and a security thread.

Early coinage may have started as a series of private acts, but it grew into a state monopoly as it gained public importance. In the 1020s China's government took over the paper receipt system, making the world's first government-issued paper money. A European traveler described paper money in the Yuan dynasty of China and astonished the Western world.

In 1907 the U.S. had another financial crisis, and it was the only major financial power without a central bank. In 1908 Congress passed a law that allowed emergency currency and created an 18-member National Monetary Commission. The 1913 law that set up the Federal Reserve required it to hold gold worth 40 percent of the money it issued. In March 1933 the Federal Reserve Bank of New York could no longer swap currency for gold, and the president declared a national banking holiday.

As of November 2026, the Federal Reserve's policymakers say an inflation rate of 2 percent per year over the longer run is most consistent with its goals, and the Bank of England sets the economy's core interest rate, called Bank Rate.

In the 2023 survey, for the first time in the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, cash was not the most-used way to pay for small purchases of $25 or less. In the 2023 survey, people also held more cash than before 2020, both as a store of value and as a backup way to pay.

As of November 2026, the Federal Reserve destroys about 15 percent of the notes banks deposit with it, because they are soiled, defaced or torn. A group of agencies, including the Federal Reserve, Treasury, BEP and Secret Service, watches counterfeiting threats and recommends redesigns. Currency is redesigned mainly to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The percentage of counterfeit notes in circulation remains small, but new counterfeiting techniques keep appearing.

Words to know

• intaglio: engraved printing
• counterfeit: fake
• monopoly: sole control
• watermark: hidden paper picture
• inflation: rising prices