$1000 bill - Image courtesy of Dreamstime

By Connor Gunn

Old bills to lose legal tender status in 2021

Nov 23, 2020 | 11:02 AM

OTTAWA, ON – The $1, $2, $25, $500, and $1,000 bills will have their legal tender status removed as of January 1, 2021.

Businesses will not be allowed to take in these bills as currency and the bills will essentially become obsolete.

The Bank of Canada (BoC) says the removal of these bills will have little impact on the majority of Canadians and the bank notes targeted by this announcement have not been produced in decades and are rarely used in transactions.

BoC says these bills will not lose their value, Canadians can redeem them at face value or they can keep them.

Those wanting to redeem them can do so at their financial institution.

Discontinuing dates of the bills are as follows:

• $1 and $2 notes stopped being issued in 1989 and 1996.
• $25 and $500 bills were discontinued shortly after they were issued in 1935.
• $1,000 note stopped being issued in 2000.

Currently, there are no plans to remove legal tender status from any other bank notes.