What is the official currency of the United States?

The official currency of the United States is the U.S. dollar. It has the symbol $, the ISO 4217 code USD, and is divided into 100 cents. Federal Reserve Notes make up the country’s familiar paper money, while the United States Mint produces its coins.

The Coinage Act of 1792 established the dollar as the monetary unit of the United States. The new currency was valued at par with the widely circulating Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight, which had influenced monetary systems across the Americas.

The dollar was initially linked to specified amounts of silver and gold. The United States later abandoned the gold standard, and since 1971 the dollar has not been convertible into gold at a fixed official rate. Today it is a floating fiat currency whose value is determined in foreign-exchange markets.

The U.S. dollar is also used officially in several other countries and territories, including Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, and Timor-Leste. That international role can cause confusion: the Japanese yen, British pound, and euro are major global currencies, but none is the official currency of the United States.