Money serial number lookup
Enter the serial from a US bill and find out what it is worth. Most of the time the answer is face value, and this tool says so. When it is not, you get a range, the pattern driving it, and the reasoning behind both.
The short version
A bill from your wallet is worth what is printed on it. That is not a disclaimer, it is the statistically correct answer: the serial patterns collectors pay for cover well under one percent of notes in circulation, and the common ones add single-digit dollars. Sites that answer this question with an excited maybe are selling something.
Four things genuinely move a note above face value. A serial number collectors recognise. A replacement star note from a short print run. A printing error. And condition, which multiplies or erases all of the above.
What a serial number premium actually looks like
Premiums are added to face value, not multiplied by it. A collector paying for a radar is buying the number; the note underneath is a floor. This is why a "worth 5× face" rule produces nonsense on a $100 bill, and it is the most common error in this niche.
| Serial standing | $1 note | $20 note | $100 note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trophy | $250 – $3,000 | $475 – $5,400 | $750 – $7,900 |
| Major | $60 – $400 | $130 – $750 | $250 – $1,100 |
| Mid-market | $16 – $90 | $45 – $180 | $140 – $325 |
| Entry fancy | $4 – $25 | $25 – $65 | $110 – $165 |
| Named only | $1 – $6 | $20 – $30 | $100 – $115 |
| Face value | $1 | $20 | $100 |
Condition does more damage than people expect
The same serial, on the same denomination, across the four conditions the lookup offers. A folded note does not lose a slice of the premium, it loses most of it, because the buyer is waiting for a clean example of a number that exists in a few dozen copies.
| Condition | Band |
|---|---|
| Uncirculated — crisp, no folds | $45 – $180 |
| About uncirculated — one light fold | $35 – $115 |
| Circulated — several folds, still clean | $30 – $70 |
| Worn — soft, creased, marked or torn | $25 – $40 |
Condition is also the one thing a third-party holder settles permanently, which is why PMG grading is worth considering on a scarce note and worth nothing on a common one.
What the letters tell you
The lookup reads them, and most competing tools discard them. How to read a serial number takes every part apart in detail. In short: on a $1 or $2 the single letter before the digits is the Federal Reserve district that issued the note. On a $5 and above, since Series 1996, there are two: the series letter then the district letter. A star in place of the trailing letter marks a replacement note, printed to replace a sheet spoiled during production — those are printed in much smaller quantities, though run sizes vary from 8,000 notes to 25 million, and the size of the specific run is what decides whether it is worth anything. If your note has one, the star note lookup finds the exact run it came from.
Things that do not add value, however often you read otherwise
- Age. A 1985 note in circulated condition is spending money. Series year alone is not scarcity.
- A district you have not seen before. All twelve districts print in the hundreds of millions.
- Three or four repeated digits. A serial with exactly three distinct digits occurs 695,520 times per run — one note in 144.
- Writing, stamps or "where's George" marks. These reduce value on a note that had any.
Questions
Is my dollar bill worth anything because of the serial number?
Almost certainly not. Fewer than one note in a hundred carries a serial pattern any collector will pay extra for, and most of the patterns that do exist add a few dollars rather than a few hundred. The honest default answer for a bill pulled from a wallet is face value.
How do I look up the value of a serial number?
Enter the full serial, the denomination and the condition above. The lookup decodes the district and series from the letters, tests the eight digits against every collector pattern, and returns a range in dollars — or tells you plainly that the note is worth face value.
Why a range instead of a price?
Because there is no ticker for paper money. A pattern might see a few dozen comparable sales in a year, spread across grades and denominations. Any site quoting one number for your note has invented it. Completed eBay sales and Heritage auction archives are where a real price comes from.
Does an old bill sell for more than a new one?
Age on its own does almost nothing. A 1985 twenty in circulated condition is worth twenty dollars. What moves value is scarcity of the specific note — a small print run, a replacement star note from a short run, an error, an early series in genuinely uncirculated condition, or a serial number collectors compete for.
Want the pattern taxonomy rather than a dollar figure? Check a serial for collector patterns — that tool lists every pattern a serial matches and the computed odds for each.