The Treasury reintroduced the two-dollar bill in 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
The redesigned note entered circulation on April 13, 1976, the 233rd birthday of Thomas Jefferson, whose portrait appears on the front. Its reverse features John Trumbull’s painting Declaration of Independence, linking the note directly to the founding-era theme of the Bicentennial.
The reissue made the $2 denomination a Federal Reserve Note rather than a special commemorative certificate. Although two-dollar notes remain legal tender, they have never circulated as widely as one-dollar or five-dollar bills. Their relative rarity often leads people to assume they are no longer valid, but that is incorrect.
The 1976 design is also sometimes mistaken for a separate commemorative currency issue. It was a regular circulating Federal Reserve Note with a new design, issued to mark the 200th anniversary of American independence. The denomination itself was not newly created in 1976; earlier United States two-dollar notes had been issued in several forms.