Estimating the Volume of Counterfeit U.S. Currency in Circulation

The incidence of currency counterfeiting and the possible total stock of counterfeits in circulation are popular topics of speculation and discussion in the press and are of substantial practical interest to the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury and the United States Secret Service (USSS), who are jointly responsible for U.S. banknote design, including security features, and production. This paper assembles data from Federal Reserve and USSS sources and presents a range of estimates for the number of counterfeits in circulation in the United States. In addition, the paper presents figures on counterfeit passing activity by denomination, location, and counterfeit type. The paper has two main conclusions: first, the stock of counterfeits in the United States as a whole is at most about $30 million, or about 1 in 40,000 notes and is likely about $15 million, or on the order of 1 every 80,000 genuine notes in both piece and value terms. This estimate marks a significant decline from the estimate of 1 in 10,000 notes presented in Treasury (2006) using similar methods and data sources, and the decline is likely at least partially due to increased circulation of higher-security banknotes as well as increased public education about U.S. dollar banknote security features. Second, when counterfeit notes of reasonable quality are considered, losses to the U.S. public from only the high-quality counterfeits of the most commonly used notes, the $20 and smaller denominations, are minuscule. However, there is a range of estimates overall for counterfeits in circulation, and these estimates vary by denomination.