Security Features for Canadian Bank Notes

The Bank of Canada offers tools, free printed material, and information services to help retailers, the public, and financial institutions to quickly, easily, and reliably identify genuine bank notes.

Eligibility Criteria

All Canadians, including business owners and their staff.

Summary

The Bank of Canada was created to be the sole issuer of bank notes and to facilitate management of the country's financial system. As Canada’s central bank, the Bank is mandated to keep inflation low, stable, and predictable; promote a stable and efficient financial system; oversee key clearing and settlement systems; and supply safe and secure bank notes.

As the sole issuer of Canadian bank notes, the Bank of Canada is committed to maintain confidence in Canada’s paper money. Using bank notes for transactions is convenient, secure, and immediate. Cash provides privacy to customers with no transaction fees. All Canadian bank notes have security features that are reliable, quick, and easy to use. Make it a habit to check two or more of these features. When you do, you provide quality customer service and avoid counterfeits. Think of it as the authorization process for cash. 

Note that all five denominations have the same security features. Once you learn how to check one, you know how to check them all. It takes only minutes to learn and seconds to do! Remember that verifying the mere presence of a security feature is not enough. You need to make sure that each feature appears and acts as it should when you tilt or look through the note. If a note seems suspicious to you, compare it with a note that you know is genuine. If you don’t know the security features on older bills, refuse them and ask for the most recent and more secure Canadian Journey series – the bills with the metallic stripe.

To learn about the security features of previous series notes in order to accept them with confidence, consult the Bank’s website. Also note that several features are incorporated into today’s bank notes to help blind and visually impaired Canadians recognize bank note denominations either by touch, by sight, or by electronic signal. These design elements are not security features and should not be used to authenticate bank notes.

For more details about paper money and the Bank’s training materials, education programs, and services, visit the Bank Notes Counterfeiting Prevention page of the Bank of Canada's website.

New Brunswick Contact(s):
See National Contact.

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National Contact(s):
Bank Note Communication and Compliance Team
Bank of Canada
234 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0G9
Fax: (613) 782-7533
Toll-free (information): 1-888-513-8212
E-mail: education@bankofcanada.ca