The Treasury Department during the 1900s tried unsuccessfully several times to popularize the use of the $2 bill. In 1966, it gave up and discontinued printing the bills “because a lack of public demand.”

The denomination was used continuously until 1966 when the only class of U.S. currency it was then assigned to, United States Notes, began to be discontinued; it initially failed to be reassigned to the Federal Reserve Note class of United States currency; the Treasury Department cited the $2 bill's low use and unpopularity as the reason for not continuing use of the denomination.

By the early 1960s, the $2 bill rarely circulated, and in 1966 it was officially discontinued because of low public demand. Overall, from its inception in 1862 until the 1965 bills were printed, a total of 1.6 billion were printed.

When and Why $2 Bills Were Discontinued and Reintroduced In 1966, due to a decrease in demand and the high cost of production, the printing of $2 bills was temporarily halted. However, they were reintroduced in 1976 as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the United States.