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1971

Gold window closes

15 August: the Nixon shock suspends dollar–gold convertibility for foreign officials.

Colorized photograph of President Richard Nixon seated at a table meeting with economic advisors and Cabinet members.
President Nixon with economic advisors — the policy circle around the 1971 gold-window decision; colorized.Colorized from public-domain original — U.S. government photograph (NARA 194579).

On 15 August 1971 — the Nixon shock — the United States stopped converting dollars into gold for foreign official holders. That closed the last official gold window on the postwar dollar.

Private Americans had already been barred from monetary gold since the 1933 recall. Official dollar claims had outgrown the U.S. gold stock at $35 an ounce; that Sunday ended the remaining convertibility link.

Nixon shock 1971 →