Are you wondering if it Is legal to burn money? It’s a somewhat strange question since it’s hard to imagine why someone would want to set a dollar bill on fire instead of spending it on something useful.

But in the era of increasingly bizarre and misguided viral internet videos and the copycats they inspire, burning money for the shock value and clicks and likes is enough for some people to go to wild and weird lengths to get attention. 

But the performative spectacle of burning money, like when boxing champion Floyd Mayweather made headlines for burning a $100 bill at a club in Atlanta back in 2011, certainly raises questions about the legality of destroying or defacing legal tender.

While Mayweather’s display of callous decadence and careless attitude towards his own obscene wealth, he wasn’t charged with a crime.

Defacing the dollar bill

Regardless of the consequences or lack thereof for him, the act of burning, defacing, or otherwise destroying currency has a long history of legal confusion in many countries, some of which outlaw the act while others don’t explicitly make burning money illegal. 

Before someone disfigures money, make sure they read this article. They need to make sure that the US Government doesn’t try to file something against them in the Supreme Court for a violation of title. If someone does come after them, it will likely be the Secret Service, which was asked to take action on behalf of the Central Bank.

There have been some recent cases in New York where someone violated a few federal laws for burning amounts of money.

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Is it a crime to burn money?

The act of burning money, of course, carries a symbolic element of how inherently valueless paper money actually is without societies generally agreeing to its value and has been used by artists and activists the world over many times.

In the age of cryptocurrencies, the debate over what constitutes “value” in the digital age makes the act of burning physical, fiat currency perhaps more puzzling, confounding, and profound than ever before. 

With the introduction of polymer-based banknotes in Canada in 2012, the Bank of Canada touted them as being at least two and a half times more durable than cotton-paper bills.

But because they’re made of plastic, people started putting them in the microwave and filming the results. The experiment wasn’t exactly a success, but it sure put the bank’s durability claims to the test, nonetheless. 

Currency Destruction and defacement law in North America

In the United States, laws about the defacement and manipulation of hard currency mainly seek to deter counterfeiting and fraud associated with the manufacture of fake bills and coins. People who alter, deface, falsify, or mutilate coins made by the U.S. Mint can face up to five years in prison and a fine.

It’s also illegal to possess, pass, sell, or “utter an “altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled or lightened” coin. 

In addition to coins, U.S. law also prohibits the “mutilation” of bank notes.

Carrying a potential fine and prison sentence of up to six months, the law prohibits people from mutilating, cutting, defacing, disfiguring, perforating, or gluing together bank notes, drafts, or “other evidence of debt” if the note is issued by the Federal Reserve or a national banking association.

Title 18 of the U.S. Code also states that “any other thing” done to a bill to render it unfit for circulation is also prohibited. 

Legal to burn money?

The strange exception to these rules might very well be the presence of penny-crushing machines at amusement parks and other tourist attractions, where you can pay to have a penny elongated into any number of images as a souvenir.

These machines are allowed because it’s assumed that the mutilated pennies will never be passed off as currency, being meant as novelty souvenirs and keepsakes. 

This exception for novelty pennies notwithstanding, the U.S. Code also prohibits people from “debasing” gold or silver coins struck at U.S. mints. Carrying a fine and/or a prison sentence of up to a decade, it’s illegal to lighten or shave a U.S. gold or silver coin or “embezzle” metals meant for minting coins. 

In Canada and the United Kingdom, defacing or mutilating legal tenders such as coins and banknotes is indeed illegal. While the Criminal Code of Canada doesn’t explicitly ban the burning of money, there are several offences under the code relating to hard currency, mainly related to counterfeiting and related activities. 

High treason punishable by death

Interestingly, laws against the altering or defacing of currency go back hundreds of years, going back to an era when coins were made of precious metals like gold and silver.

In Britain, it was once considered high treason punishable by death to “clip” coins, the act of cutting or shaving small bits of gold or silver coins and collecting the clippings and shavings to be melted down and sold. 

Though it seems a tedious task, it was obviously profitable and widespread enough to outlaw the practice and have it potentially result in such extreme consequences.

To counter coin clipping and shaving, mints eventually began introducing milled coins with ridged edges to deter people from shaving them down and also stopped minting coins using precious metals. 

The Criminal Code of Canada

In Canada, the Criminal Code still prohibits the act of clipping or shaving coins, criminalizing the possession of gold or silver fillings or bullion dust that was made by the impairment, diminishment or lightening of a gold or silver coin that is current and legal tender in the country, and the offence can carry up to five years in jail.

But those who try to spend “impaired, diminished or lightened” coins made of gold or silver, face up to 14 years in prison. 

Moreover, Canada also outlaws the melting down of coins through the Federal Currency Act. Unless granted a licence by the government, it’s illegal to melt down or break up coins that are “current and legal tender in Canada.” The offence carries a fine of up to $250 and can also include up to a year in jail.

But, somewhat strangely, both the Currency Act nor the Criminal Code don’t mention the destruction of paper bills or notes by fire or other means, so burning Canadian dollars in the form of bills doesn’t carry any criminal or civil consequences. It’s legal to burn money.

Legal to burn money?

Hopefully, this article answered in it’s legal to burn paper currency. Some things you will want to think about are if the laws in your area will change depending on the amount of money burnt.

The Treasury, Federal Reserve Bank, and Bureau of Engraving and Printing work hard to print money, so they don’t want people damaging U.S. currency. As we have seen with inflation, it can be hard to have the correct supply of money going around.

It’s a common misconception that destroying or defacing money is a universally prohibited criminal act, leading to a lot of confusion, but different countries have different rules to protect their money supplies from manipulation.

Currency manipulation through counterfeiting has been a problem since its invention, but it stands to reason that governments the world over are more concerned about people printing their own money rather than setting it on fire.  

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