Bureau of Engraving and Printing BEP

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing began in 1862, when a handful of workers in the Treasury building signed and trimmed sheets of the first federal paper money issued to pay for the Civil War. It grew into a full printing operation, and for much of its history it also printed postage stamps and other government securities. Today its sole major product is paper currency.

The bureau prints Federal Reserve notes, in denominations from one to one hundred dollars, at two plants: one in Washington, D.C., near the National Mall, and one in Fort Worth, Texas, opened in 1991. It does not decide how much money to print. The Federal Reserve Board sets the annual print order and pays the bureau for the notes, then distributes them through the regional Reserve Banks. Coins are made by a separate Treasury bureau, the U.S. Mint.

Much of the bureau's work goes into anti-counterfeiting features such as color-shifting ink, security threads, watermarks, and microprinting, developed with the Federal Reserve and the Secret Service. It is funded entirely by what it charges the Fed rather than by appropriations. Debates over redesigning notes, including a long-delayed plan to put Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill, also run through the bureau and the Treasury Secretary.