A U.S. dollar bill is made of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen, not wood-pulp paper like you’d find in a notebook or printer. This fabric-like blend is why a bill can survive an accidental trip through the washing machine while ordinary paper falls apart. Every denomination, from the $1 to the $100, uses the same base material.
Cotton and Linen, Not Paper
Calling it “paper money” is technically a misnomer. The material is closer to cloth. The cotton-linen blend gives bills a distinctive feel that’s almost impossible to replicate with standard paper, which is one reason the texture itself acts as a first line of defense against counterfeiting. If you hold a genuine bill between your fingers, the slight roughness and snap you feel come directly from those cotton and linen fibers.
Crane Currency, a company based in Dalton, Massachusetts, has supplied currency paper to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing since 1879. The company’s roots in cotton currency paper go back even further, to 1801, when it began producing banknote stock for local and regional banks. That relationship has continued for well over a century, making it one of the longest-running government contracts in U.S. history.
Red and Blue Fibers You Can See
Look closely at any bill and you’ll notice tiny red and blue threads scattered randomly across the surface. These synthetic security fibers are embedded directly into the paper during manufacturing, not printed on afterward. They sit within the material itself, so you can sometimes pick at them with a fingernail. Counterfeit bills often try to mimic these by printing red and blue specks on the surface, but the fakes sit flat on top of the paper rather than being woven into it.
This technique isn’t new. Crane developed a method for embedding parallel silk threads into banknote paper as far back as 1844, originally to help distinguish between different denominations and deter forgery. The modern red and blue fibers are a direct descendant of that idea.
Layers of Specialized Ink
The paper is only half the story. A finished bill carries multiple layers of ink, each designed to do something different. The black ink on the front of a bill contains magnetic particles, allowing automated machines at banks and in vending systems to verify authenticity by reading the magnetic signature.
On higher denominations like the $100, you’ll notice ink that shifts color when you tilt the bill. This optically variable ink changes appearance at different viewing angles, a feature that’s easy for anyone to check without special equipment. The technology works by reflecting light differently depending on the angle, so a number might look copper at one tilt and green at another. Fluorescent inks also appear on modern bills, invisible under normal light but glowing under ultraviolet, which is why some cashiers use a UV light to check larger bills.
Size, Weight, and Feel
Every U.S. bill, regardless of denomination, measures 6.14 inches wide by 2.61 inches tall (about 157 mm by 66.3 mm). Each note weighs roughly one gram. That uniformity is intentional: it means bill-counting machines, vending machines, and ATMs can handle any denomination the same way. It also means 454 bills weigh approximately one pound.
How Long a Bill Lasts
The cotton-linen blend is durable, but bills don’t last forever. How long one survives depends mostly on how often it changes hands. A $1 bill, constantly passed around for everyday purchases, lasts an estimated 7.2 years. A $5 lasts about 5.8 years, and a $10 about 5.7 years. Both wear out faster than the $1 simply because they tend to be folded, crumpled, and stuffed into pockets at a higher rate relative to their circulation volume.
Higher denominations hold up much longer because people handle them less frequently. A $20 bill lasts around 11.1 years, a $50 about 14.9 years, and a $100 bill can circulate for roughly 24 years. The $100 survives so long partly because many of them are used as a store of value, sitting in safes or overseas holdings rather than being exchanged daily at a coffee shop. When bills become too worn, torn, or soiled, the Federal Reserve pulls them from circulation and destroys them, replacing them with freshly printed notes.
Why Cotton Instead of Regular Paper
Wood-pulp paper breaks down quickly when exposed to moisture, oils from skin, and repeated folding. Cotton fibers are significantly longer and more flexible than wood pulp, giving the material its durability and resistance to tearing. The addition of linen adds extra strength and contributes to the crisp feel of a new bill. Together, these fibers can withstand about 4,000 double folds before tearing, far beyond what any wood-based paper could handle.
This composition also makes bills resistant to water. A bill that goes through a washing machine will come out wrinkled but intact. The cotton-linen blend doesn’t dissolve or disintegrate the way printer paper would, which is a practical benefit for the millions of bills that accidentally end up in laundry every year.