12 U.S.C. § 418
Section 418 · Printing of notes; denomination and form
This is § 16 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913
Amended 4 times on record
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case American Council of the Blind v. Paulson (2008)
Most recently applied in American Council of the Blind v. Steven Mnuchin (October 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In order to furnish suitable notes for circulation as Federal reserve notes, the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause plates and dies to be engraved in the best manner to guard against counterfeits and fraudulent alterations, and shall have printed therefrom and numbered such quantities of such notes of the denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 as may be required to supply the Federal Reserve banks. Such notes shall be in form and tenor as directed by the Secretary of the Treasury under the provisions of this chapter and shall bear the distinctive numbers of the several Federal reserve banks through which they are issued.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
This chapter, referred to in text, was in the original “this Act”, meaning act Dec. 23, 1913, ch. 6, 38 Stat. 251, as amended, known as the Federal Reserve Act. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see References in Text note set out under section 226 of this title and Tables.
Codification
Section is comprised of eighth par. of section 16 of act Dec. 23, 1913. For classification to this title of other pars. of section 16, see Codification note set out under section 411 of this title.
Amendments
1994—Pub. L. 103–325, which directed substitution in first sentence of “the Secretary of the Treasury shall” for “the Comptroller of the Currency shall under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury,”, was executed by making the substitution for “the Comptroller of the Currency shall, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury,” to reflect the probable intent of Congress.
1963—Pub. L. 83–36 inserted “$1, $2,” after “notes of the denominations of”.