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While most of the facility is closed to the public, the coin store located at 801 9th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20220 is open to everyone. The store is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. It is closed on federal holidays.

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For more information visit the US Treasury Tour Page.

Tours of the treasury building.

Building tours are conducted by volunteer docents and managed by the Office of the Curator, United States Treasury Department, not the Treasury Historical Association.

Guided tours of the Main Treasury Building are offered on most Saturday mornings at 9:00, 9:45, 10:30 and 11:15. The approximate length is 60 minutes. Some tour highlights are the newly restored gilded West dome and lobby and the Cash Room.

Reservations: Advance reservations are required and may be made through Congressional offices. Tours are only available at this time for citizens and legal residents of the United States.

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Treasury Department

The treasury building is the home of the federal government’s second department, established in 1789..

Built between 1836 and 1869, the Treasury Department building is the work of five major American architects—Robert Mills, Thomas U. Walter, Ammi B. Young, Isaiah Rogers, and Alfred B. Mullett. Conceived and built in the Greek Revival style that captured the spirit of the young republic, this building and the Patent Office , undertaken at the same time, are the most outstanding examples of Greek Revival civil architecture in the country. Not only were they the largest non-military buildings undertaken by the federal government in their own time, but they also influenced countless examples of civil architecture across the nation.

From 1800, the Treasury Department was housed in the first of George Hadfield’s three brick Executive Offices, built between 1798 and 1799 on the site of the present north wing. The Treasury Office caught fire in 1801, 1814, and 1833, and it was not reconstructed after the third conflagration. Robert Mills, who had been in the capital since 1830, was asked to assess the fire, and by 1836, his plans for a new Treasury building were accepted by Andrew Jackson. Undoubtedly, a major reason for Mills’s selection was his interest in fireproof construction, demonstrated by his Fireproof Building (1822-27) in Charleston, South Carolina. Mills had also studied with both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Latrobe.

Mills’s design for the Treasury called for an E-shaped building opening west toward the White House, with a long classical facade on 15th Street, but only the east front and center wing were built under his supervision, from 1836 to 1842. The unusual vaulted structural system of the building and its monumental scale aroused suspicion in Congress, as well as some sharp professional jealousies among rival architects. In 1838, a bill was introduced in Congress to authorize the demolition of the half-completed structure. The architect presenting the case for demolition was Thomas U. Walter, Philadelphia’s leading Greek Revival practitioner. Walter was appointed Architect of the Capitol in 1851, and he was authorized to prepare plans for extending the Treasury in 1855. His concept, which was carried through as others executed the work, established the ultimate rectangular layout, double courtyards, and portico facades.

The south wing was built from 1855 to 1861 under the supervision of Ammi B. Young, appointed Supervising Architect of the Treasury in 1852. While Mills had been forced to use Aquia Creek sandstone, the extension was carried out in granite. The columns were monoliths, whereas Mills’ had been built up in drums. Young was abruptly dismissed by Secretary Salmon P. Chase in 1862 and replaced by Isaiah Rogers, who remained in the job until 1865, supervising completion of the west wing (1855-64), addition of an attic floor on all the wings (1863-65), and preliminary planning for the north wing. Upon his resignation, Rogers was succeeded by his former subordinate Alfred B. Mullett, who completed the north wing between 1867 and 1869. This wing contains the elaborately decorated marble Banking Room, which was the setting for Ulysses Grant’s first inaugural ball in 1869.

The Mills interiors are minimally decorated, their architectural character resulting from the masonry barrel-vaulted corridors, flanked by groin-vaulted offices. The elegantly curved, cantilevered marble staircases are a signature of his work. In contrast, the interiors of the three later wings rely much more on interior decoration for their architectural character. Their structural system, influenced by the emergent cast iron technology, is one of shallow brick vaults supported on cast iron beams, producing rectilinear volumes and a much less sculptural appearance. In these wings, Young, Rogers, and Mullett made extensive and imaginative use cast iron of and cast plaster decoration, including cast iron pilasters and friezes in the main corridors. Mullett’s Cash Room is the most lavish space in the building, displaying seven varieties of marble in the paneled walls, and richly sculptural bronze railings for the balcony.

By the late 1890s, the need for additional office space led to the insertion of a large truss-roofed drafting room in the south courtyard, for use by the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. The poor quality of the building’s original Aquia Creek sandstone led to the rebuilding of Mills’ colonnade. Architects York and Sawyer added an attic story to the building between 1909 and 1910 and made other alterations through 1923. The north entrance statue of Alexander Hamilton, by James Earle Fraser on a base by Henry Bacon, was also installed in 1923.

DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks) National Register and National Historic Landmark: November 11, 1971 Within Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site and Fifteenth Street and Lafayette Square Historic Districts

This site is included in the Women's Suffrage in Washington DC tour for its role as a staging area for allegorical performances at the end of the 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade.

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Department of Treasury

The Treasury Building took 33 years to build from 1836 – 1869. It was primarily designed by the same man, Robert Mills, who was the architect of the Washington Monument . At the time of its construction, the Treasury Building was one of the largest office buildings in the world. It served as a barracks during the Civil War and a temporary White House for President Andrew Johnson after President Lincoln’s assassination. Built in the Greek Revival style, Treasury was the first Departmental building in the nation’s capital thus influencing the design of many of the others.

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Treasury cash room.

The Cash Room opened in June 1869 in the United States Treasury Department for the transaction of the government's financial business. The need for a bank in the Treasury Building arose indirectly from a reform of the country's monetary system in 1846 and from subsequent developments during the Civil War.

The architect of the Cash Room, Alfred B. Mullett, designed it as a roofed version of an Italian palazzo, a traditional bank design throughout Europe.

Mullett had admired the rich marble work he saw in European palaces and cathedrals during an architectural tour of the continent in 1865, and these impressions may have also influenced his design of the Cash Room.

Prior to it completion as a bank, the Cash Room was chosen as the site for the Inaugural Reception for President Ulysses S. Grant on March 4, 1869. Two thousand invitations were sold, each admitting one gentleman and two ladies. Unfortunately, lack of planning to control the crowd of six thousand turned the event into a disaster.

According to a report the next day in the Evening Star there was a "wild hunt for overcoats," as hats and overcoats had been jumbled together in the fourth-floor cloakroom without regard for a number system. Gentlemen had to wait in the corridors for hours to retrieve their garments. Others were forced to leave without wraps, only to return the next day to try again. 

When the Cash Room opened officially in June it functioned principally as a "banker's bank," supplying area commercial banks with coins and currency f rom Treasury vaults and handling the government accounts of the District of Columbia. Services were also offered to the public, including cashing of government checks, exchanging new money for old, redeeming silver certificates and gold certificates, and selling U.S. Treasury bonds.

Up until the early 1900s, gold, silver, and paper currency were delivered to the Treasury Building in horse-drawn vans and unloaded at the sidewalk entrance on Fifteenth Street, then hauled through corridors on hand-carts and deposited on a cargo lift, the first elevator in the building, which carried them to the Cash Room vaults. Several million dollars might be contained in the vaults at any given time; bags of notes, coins, and bullion were stacked floor to ceiling.

Changes made to modernize and meet the demands posed by the great numbers of patrons were not always attractive, and they contributed to a general deterioration in the appearance of the room that occurred over years of wear and tear. By the 1970s, the costs of operating the Cash Room and maintaining its staff and security could no longer be justified. The Cash Room closed on June 30, 1976.

In 1985 a renewed appreciation of the Cash Room's historic significance enabled the Treasury Department to begin restoration. With a combination of federal support and private funds raised by the Committee for the Preservation of the Treasury Building, the room was slowly returned to its former splendor. The bronze gaslight chandeliers, which had apparently been scrapped around 1890 at the time electricity was introduced into the building were replicated from numerous historic photographs, including photographs taken by the Matthew Brady Studio around 1870.

Original wooden doors, transoms, and radiator-grill covers were replicated to replace stylistically inappropriate modern substitutes. Due to excessive wear, the remains of the original floor could not be restored, so a new floor was laid in the original pattern and materials, red Lisbon and Italian Carrara marble.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We appreciate the help of the Office of the Curator is providing and maintaining this information.

How to Tour the Treasury Department

quickwhittravel

Updated July 7, 2020.

It’s Museum Monday! Today I’m letting you in on a well-kept secret. You can visit the Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C.! Who knew, right? I’ve lived here nearly 10 years, and I never knew until just recently that this was available. It does take a bit of planning and legwork on your part, so let’s get started!

 Know Before You Go

Before you request your tour, here are some tips and things to be aware of before you make your plans:

• It’s FREE!
• The Department of Treasury Building is located one block east of the White House at 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.
• Tours are only offered on Saturdays; this excludes some holiday weekends.
• All tour guides are volunteers who work at the Treasury Department as their day job.
• Tours are offered at 9:00am, 9:45am, 10:30am, and 11:15am.
• They claimed the tour lasts about an hour… for us it was 1 hour and 45 minutes! Be prepared for that!
• No strollers or backpacks are allowed, and there is no storage onsite.
• No photography inside (I can’t tell you how disappointed I was about that!), but you may take photos in the courtyard by the replica of the Liberty Bell.
• Want to see how they make the money? That’s a different tour! You want the Bureau of Engraving and Printing .

How to Request Your Tour

1. visit the department of treasury website.

Visit the website at the link above for the latest and greatest info. They even have a system in place to make finding and contacting your Congresspeople easy.

2. Contact Your Congressperson

Use the “Contact Senator” and “Contact Representative” buttons pictured above ( and linked here ) to find out who your Congresspeople are (every American has two Senators and one Representative, so you will have three options!) and contact their office to schedule your tour. They will send you an Excel document to fill out with your name, date of birth, social security number, whether you are a citizen or not, country of citizenship, gender, and city and state of citizenship (or city where you are staying if you are from another country).

More here: D.C. Tours to Request in Advance

3. wait for a confirmation e-mail.

Two weeks before your tour date, you will receive an e-mail confirmation for your tour. Didn’t receive an e-mail? You didn’t get in–sorry! The e-mail will tell you when and where to report. We gave our Congressperson’s scheduler four dates we would be available, with our #1 preference first. Our first choice was December 2 for the 11:15, but we got December 2 at 9:00. Be flexible! You do not need to print anything to take with you as your ticket, but have the confirmation e-mail ready just in case. I kept mine on my smartphone for quick access.

Here is the attachment we received for more information:

The Day of Your Tour

1. show up early.

And at the right location! Your confirmation e-mail will tell you to arrive 5-10 minutes early . So we planned to get there at 8:45am for our 9:00am tour, just in case. (We like to run early!) You should meet at the West Entrance at Executive Boulevard and Pennsylvania Avenue, but there was no sign. We realized that you can check in at the White House checkpoint, so don’t be fooled! You can Metro (not sure how to Metro? Check out  D.C.’s Metro System: A Guide ) to McPherson Square on the Orange, Blue, and Silver Lines.

Want more? Check out D.C. Tours Your Never Knew You Could Take!

2. have your photo identification (id) ready.

If you are 16 or older and don’t have ID, you don’t get in. Those under 16 do not need an ID, just the company of an adult with ID. Acceptable forms of ID are:

• State Driver’s License
• Government-issued ID card

3. Take a Photo with the Liberty Bell and Enjoy Your Tour!

This is the one place where you can get a photo, so take advantage of it! As for the rest of the tour, take it all in and listen for the history and significance of the building. Enjoy, and feel free to ask questions!

And you won’t leave empty-handed! You will be given a detailed brochure and approximately $25 in shredded cash!

Are you ready to get your own tour scheduled? I recommend it! Find all you need about your trip to D.C. on my Washington, D.C. Page !

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5 responses to “how to tour the treasury department”.

The cash is such a great idea for gifts! Yeah, it’s their trash, but a really good souvenir.

Right?! Too funny. Hope you liked the post! We can try to go on a tour next time you come up to visit!

This will definitely be on our list next time we visit D.C., the free museums and sites are fantastic!

It’s a great one! I also have guides for visiting the White House and Capitol, and I have a post coming out Monday all about touring the State Department! Stay tuned!

[…] Not to be confused with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing! This tour is not as difficult to get, but it’s only offered on Saturdays, so it’s much more specific than the rest. I recommend requesting this tour through your congresspeople at least two months in advance. For details, check out How to Tour the Treasury Department. […]

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Visiting the U.S. Bureau of Engraving & Printing in Washington, DC

Check out where U.S. currency is made and take a tour with this unique free experience.

What and where is the U.S. Bureau of Engraving & Printing?

The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing , founded in 1862, produces Federal Reserve Notes (also known as paper money, or U.S. dollars) for the Federal Reserve, our country’s central bank (note that coins are made by the United States Mint). The Bureau also produces Treasury securities, military commissions and award certificates, ID cards, invitations and an additional range of security documents for government agencies, making it the largest producer of government security documents in the U.S.

The Bureau has two locations: one in Forth Worth, Tx. and the other in, you guessed it, Washington, DC. The official address is 301 14th Street SW, Washington, DC 20228. The facility features two adjacent buildings, with the facade of the main building facing Raoul Wallenburg Place SW, the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial.

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Take a tour of the "money factory"

Tickets, which are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, are required for the tour from March through November. The ticket booth is located at Raoul Wallenburg Place SW (formerly known as 15th Street) and opens at 8 a.m., Monday through Friday. The booth closes when all tickets have been distributed for the day.

Group tours for groups of 10 up to 30 people run every 30 minutes from 11 a.m. – noon. Limited reserved tour times are offered. To reserve a group tour, fill out the Group Reservation Request Form and e-mail it to [email protected] . You can learn more about group tours by calling 202-874-2330 or 1-866-874-2330.

Call 202-874-2330 for more information about the accessible entrance.

All visitors must pass through a security screening before entering the Bureau. Tour guides will direct visitors to enter the building when appropriate.

What will I see on the tour?

The 40-minute experience will enlighten you on all things related to U.S. currency. The tour begins with an introductory film that details the function of the Bureau and its importance. Along the way, you’ll witness millions of dollars being printed as you stroll through the gallery that overlooks the production floor.

The tour also includes exhibits that dive further into the production of our national currency. There’s also a gift shop, open from 8:30 a.m. – 2:45 p.m., that features currency products for sale.

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The Bureau of Engraving and Printing welcomes visitors to the Tour and Visitor Centers in Washington, DC and Fort Worth, Texas.

Shop Online

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is resuming the Public Sales Program on October 1, 2023. Numismatic offerings are being reintroduced in phases. Uncut Currency Sheets is the first product line to be replenished, as BEP’s core public sales product. BEP will continue to evaluate the schedule for future product offerings. Product updates will be communicated via the product schedule on the U.S. Mint’s website.

If you can't make it to DC or Fort Worth, be sure to shop online for uncut currency sheets and specialty products!  Browse our selection of unique products that make gift-giving easy or to add to your own money collection.

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FY2023 Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) Annual Report

In March 2021, the Federal Government passed the American Rescue Plan which awarded $50,000,000 to the District of Columbia from the US Treasury for the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) to aid homeowners who experienced an economic hardship due to the pandemic.

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