https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/money
But I agree with the general principal that this should be inflation indexed.
To be honest, just because you can (legally), doesn't mean you should (do it). Carrying cash in the US is dangerous, and not just because of regular street thugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
They do not need to prove anything to seize your money. Stealing from people carrying too much cash on them has become a national past time of the police in the US. There are police departments that rely on this to provide them with funding :
https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-131/how-crime-pays-th...
> In some Texas counties, forfeitures fund nearly 40% of police budgets.53 The Cook County, Illinois state’s attorney’s office’s 2016 budget anticipated $4.96 million in forfeiture revenues, which it earmarked to pay forty-one full-time employees’ salaries and benefits.54 But forfeiture proceeds are not just used for policing activities; with little accountability, law enforcement officials have also spent them on extravagancies like expensive dinners, parties, and personal expenses.55
> As a result, the decision to pursue a forfeiture is often governed not by justice, but by “department wish lists.”56 Police civil forfeiture trainings include instruction on “maximizing profits, defeating the objections of so-called ‘innocent owners’ . . . , and keeping the proceeds in the hands of law enforcment.
It's often talked about here :
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36975143
> And over time, across all 50 states and the federal government, those small sums add up: between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ’s calculations, authorities seized roughly $69 billion from people, most of whom were not even charged with a crime.
All it takes is "mmh, this guy has suspicious cash, and we need some funding, let's steal it and say it must have come from drug deals, while not actually charging the owner with any crime".
https://moneyweek.com/33401/why-its-now-illegal-to-melt-down...
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2007/04/16/E7-7088...
> The United States Mint nevertheless acknowledges the concerns raised by the commenters. Therefore, the exception provided for in the current regulation at section 82.2(a)(2) has been amended to reasonably accommodate these concerns by allowing exportation of 5-cent and one-cent coins having an aggregate face value of up to $25 when it is clear that the purpose for exporting such coins is for legitimate personal numismatic, amusement, or recreational use.
It's still a weirdly low limit.
This is one of those things that sounds simple, but in practice, YMMV.
You're talking about centralized grifting as your examples and I'm glad they failed (well, technically Tether hasn't failed, yet).
If you are 'trusting' those companies... that is the problem. The point is that you shouldn't have to trust those companies, or the government, with your money.
And what about refugees fleeing war, like Ukrainians in 2022. There were many many cases where Ukrainians had zero access to their banks while in Poland. Having 12 words, or a set of 5 trusted guardians would be a much better way of securing your wealth than trusting some third party custodian in a city under siege.
Federal authorities generally have a higher standard of behavior than local or state police, although obviously not in every instance. If you try to cross the border with $500,000 declared, they may have some questions for you.
The point being that in cases where there is no funny business (at least in your opinion), you are strictly better off declaring it than taking your chances on not doing so.
The law in the US is that, the police can take anything they want from you, with zero judicial process needed, slap it into their department's slush fund, buy whatever toys they want, or even as someone posted above, MAKE IT PART OF THEIR YEARLY BUDGET PROCESS TO "EXPECT" MILLIONS IN STOLEN MONEY, and unless you can AFFIRMATIVELY PROVE in a court of law that you obtained the property through zero criminal or near criminal activity, you will never get it back