page_title: Canadian dollar
section_title: Banknotes
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian dollar / Banknotes
caption_attribution_description: English: Bank of Montreal,10 Dollars (1935), serial number 1. Portraits of J. Dodds and C.B. Gordon with signatures of the same. The issue date of this note (2 January 1935) predates the Bank of Canada copyright for Canadian banknotes (March 1935 forward).
context_page_description: The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or sometimes CA$, Can$ or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is divided into 100 cents.
  Owing to the image of a loon on its back, the dollar coin, and sometimes the unit of currency itself, are sometimes referred to as the loonie by English-speaking Canadians and foreign exchange traders and analysts.
  Accounting for approximately 2% of all global reserves, the Canadian dollar is the fifth most held reserve currency in the world, behind the U.S. dollar, the euro, the yen and the pound sterling. The Canadian dollar is popular with central banks because of Canada's relative economic soundness, the Canadian government's strong sovereign position, and the stability of the country's legal and political systems.
context_section_description: The first paper money issued in Canada denominated in dollars were British Army bills, issued between 1813 and 1815. Canadian dollar banknotes were later issued by the chartered banks starting in the 1830s, by several pre-Confederation colonial governments (most notably the Province of Canada in 1866), and after confederation, by the Canadian government starting in 1870. Some municipalities also issued notes, most notably depression scrip during the 1930s.
  On July 3, 1934, with only 10 chartered banks still issuing notes, the Bank of Canada was founded. This new government agency became the sole issuer of all federal notes. It began issuing notes in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $25, $50, $100, $500 and $1000. In 1944, the chartered banks were prohibited from issuing their own currency, with the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal among the last to issue notes.
  Significant design changes to the notes have occurred since 1935, with new series introduced in 1937, 1954, 1970, 1986, and 2001. In June 2011, newly designed notes printed on a polymer substrate, as opposed to cotton fibre, were announced; the first of these polymer notes, the $100 bill, began circulation on November 14, 2011, the $50 bill began circulation on March 26, 2012, the $20 denomination began circulation on November 7, 2012, and the $5 and $10 denominations began circulation on November 12, 2013.
  Since 1935, all banknotes are printed by the Ottawa-based Canadian Bank Note Company under contract to the Bank of Canada. Previously, a second company, BA International (founded in 1866 as the British American Bank Note Company), shared printing duties. In 2011, BA International announced it would close its banknote printing business and cease printing banknotes at the end of 2012; since then, the Canadian Bank Note Company has been the sole printer of Canadian banknotes.
  All banknotes from series prior to the current polymer series are now considered unfit for circulation due to their lacking of any modern security features, such as a metallic stripe. Financial institutions must return the banknotes to the Bank of Canada, which will destroy them. Individuals may keep the banknotes indefinitely.
caption: Bank of Montreal, 10 dollars (1935). First note printed for the series.
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