# More US dollar bills in the USA or abroad. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 12, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640 "2016-05-12T21:46:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/1 "2016-05-12T21:46:28Z")
The actual money. The legal tender. The green notes. Is there more of it in the USA than outside the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/2 "2016-05-12T22:07:05Z")
According to this report: [Who is holding all those U.S. dollars? | Econbrowser](http://econbrowser.com/archives/2013/04/who_is_holding) most of the US currency is in $100 bills with over half of them held outside of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/3 "2016-05-13T01:01:01Z")
North Korea has been accused of flooding the international money markets with counterfeit U. S. currency. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/4 "2016-05-13T01:09:41Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > According to this report: [Who is holding all those U.S. dollars? | Econbrowser](http://econbrowser.com/archives/2013/04/who_is_holding) > most of the US currency is in $100 bills with over half of them held outside of the US. Note that this measures money outstanding by value not number of pieces of paper so comparing $20s to $100s we’d have to multiply the $20’s 14% by 5 to get 70 to compare to the $100 76%. So there are just about the same actual number of $20 bills and $100 bills. (Though obviously the numbers I just computed are no longer percentages. If the $1s $5s and $10s are equally represented, then they average $5.33 in value. This would give those bills just over 75"%" total or about 25 “%” each. The $50s come in dead last in number of bills. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/5 "2016-05-13T16:07:12Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > Note that this measures money outstanding by value not number of pieces of paper so comparing $20s to $100s we’d have to multiply the $20’s 14% by 5 to get 70 to compare to the $100 76%. So there are just about the same actual number of $20 bills and $100 bills. (Though obviously the numbers I just computed are no longer percentages. If the $1s $5s and $10s are equally represented, then they average $5.33 in value. This would give those bills just over 75"%" total or about 25 “%” each. The $50s come in dead last in number of bills. Fewer $50’s than $2’s? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/6 "2016-05-13T20:31:52Z")
> [@CoastalMaineiac](#): > > Fewer $50’s than $2’s? Well no. $2’s weren’t even included in the chart. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/7 "2016-05-13T20:50:04Z")
In the chart, that 4% is called $1 **-** $10, which I read to mean the **range** of $1, $2, $5, and $10 bills. I don’t think it means ones **and** tens. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/8 "2016-05-14T02:01:55Z")
More and more countries are abolishing their national currency, and using US dollars instead. Panama and Liberia have used US dollars for like forever but they mint their own fractional coins. Ecuador has made the US dollar official, but there is still some old Ecuadorian money in circulation. Zimbabwe and El Salvador, similar. In Cambodia, all prices are quoted in dollars. But Cambodian paper money circulates for fractional currency, instead of cent-denominated coins. A 1,000 Cambodian Real note is equal to a US quarter, and I had to ask around to find one to bring home as a souvenir. So in those countries, vitually all the cash circulating in the country is US bills. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-us-dollar-bills-in-the-usa-or-abroad/754640/9 "2016-05-14T16:49:32Z")
The short answer to the OP’s question is, “no one knows”. The Atlantic [reported in 2012](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/-100-bills-make-up-80-of-all-us-currency-but-why/265518/): > [@](#): > > Somewhat surprisingly, it’s unclear exactly how much American money is floating around outside the US. Estimates run the gamut. In the 1990s, one high-profile estimate pegged the number at as much as 70%. But more recent estimates hover around 25%-30%. Here is a link (PDF) to the [study](https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/42169/1/MPRA_paper_42169.pdf) finding the lower figure: > [@](#): > > Currently, the official figure for the percent of U.S. currency held abroad as published by the Federal Reserve in their Flow of Funds Accounts and by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the U.S. Balance of Payments Accounts is 37 percent. This official figure is a proxy variable that is supposed to mimic the previously confidential data series maintained by the New York Federal Reserve. Judson (2012) made this series public enabling us to discover that the official estimates of currency abroad require downward revision to reflect accurately the newly released data on actual cash shipments abroad. > > We also review the “indirect” approaches to estimating the fraction of currency overseas employed by Porter and Judson (1996) and Judson (2012). We find that these indirect methods to be innovative but deeply flawed due to violations of their restrictive assumptions. Moreover, sensitivity analysis reveals the estimates highly sensitive to alternative specifying assumptions. We conclude that the large estimates of currency abroad obtained by these methods are spurious. The bulk of currency abroad is probably not within the relatively small economies that have formally dollarized, but rather is being held as a store of value in other countries with unstable currencies. But, it is impossible to give any figures; $100 bills don’t have radio trackers.