What is par value?

Par value is the face amount of a bond: the sum the issuer promises to repay at maturity and the base on which its coupon interest is calculated. $10,000 of a Treasury note is $10,000 of par whatever it costs to buy, so it earns coupons on $10,000 and returns $10,000 at the end. FINRA treats face value and par value as the same thing, and Treasury's own rules define a bill's interest as the gap between the discounted price and the par value paid at maturity. Shares of stock carry a par value too, but there it is a legal and accounting figure with no link to what the shares trade for. Most of this entry follows the securities covered in the Treasuries hub.

How are bond prices quoted against par?

Bond prices are quoted as a percentage of par, so 100 means par, a quote below 100 is a discount and a quote above 100 is a premium.

FINRA describes bond quotes as a percentage of par converted to a point scale, and Treasury prints every auction price per $100 of par to six decimals, so a quote of 98.481099 on $10,000 of par comes to $9,848.11. Accrued interest is added when a purchase falls between coupon dates, which is why the cash that leaves an account usually runs a little above the quoted figure; accrued interest shows the count. Which side of 100 a price lands on depends on the yield buyers want compared with the coupon, as TreasuryDirect's pricing table sets out: a yield above the coupon rate means a discount, and a yield below it a premium. Why bond prices fall when rates rise explains the mechanics.

What does par value mean for Treasuries?

It is the amount you buy in $100 steps and the amount Treasury repays at maturity, adjusted for inflation on TIPS.

The minimum purchase of a bill is $100, in $100 increments of par, and notes and bonds follow the same rule. Bills show par at its plainest. The 52-week bill auctioned on October 27, 2026 sold at 95.662333, a 4.290% discount rate, so $10,000 of par cost $9,566.23 on October 29 and pays $10,000 on October 28, 2027. Under 31 CFR 356.30 the bill's interest is exactly that gap, $433.77, since nothing is paid in between.

What $10,000 of par cost at four October 2026 auctions, before accrued interest:

The floating rate note sells almost exactly at par because its rate resets with bill yields every week, leaving little for the price to absorb. The TIPS row shows par moving: at the 1.00154 index ratio of its October 30 issue date, $10,000 of par already stood for $10,015.40 of principal, and coupons are paid on the adjusted figure. At maturity Treasury pays that adjusted principal or, if deflation has pulled it under par, enough extra to bring it back to par. The 20-year bond in the last row is a different issue from the one in the example above, with a 5.125% coupon. TIPS explained and what is a Treasury bill go further into each.

What is the par value of a stock?

It is a nominal amount per share, often a fraction of a cent, that sets a legal floor on the issue price and says nothing about value.

Delaware's corporation law shows how it works. Section 151 lets a company issue classes of stock with or without par value. Section 153 says shares with a par value may be issued for consideration of not less than par, while shares without par can be issued for whatever the board sets. Section 154 then ties the company's capital to at least the total par of its issued par shares. With par at a tenth of a cent or less, neither limit matters in practice.

Apple had 14,608,963,000 shares issued on June 27, 2026, so their combined par was about $146,090, a rounding error beside the market value on the Apple stock page. The NVIDIA and Tesla pages make the same point at $0.001 a share.

How does par value differ from price, principal and book value?

Par is the fixed amount owed at maturity, while price is what the market pays today, principal often means the amount invested, and book value is accounting equity.

Principal is the slippery one. FINRA's glossary uses it for the money originally invested, while Treasury's TIPS rules speak of inflation-adjusted principal, meaning par times the index ratio. For tax, what was paid becomes the cost basis, and the coupon rate entry shows which yield measures use par and which use price.

Where do you meet par value?

You meet it in auction results, Treasury purchases, bond quotes, minimum denominations and company balance sheets.

• Buying at auction. The amount entered in a Treasury bid is par, and the account is charged price times par plus any accrued interest; how Treasury auctions work covers the bidding.
• Minimum sizes. FINRA gives $1,000 as the typical par of a bond and says agency bonds generally need a $10,000 minimum investment, while the MSRB says fixed-rate municipal bonds are typically sold in $5,000 minimum denominations.
• The par yield curve. Treasury's daily curve shows the yields at which new securities would price at par; the Treasury yield curve explains how it is built.
• Selling early. A sale before maturity gets the market price, not par, and selling Treasuries before maturity shows how far apart the two can drift after rates rise.
• Annual reports. A company's balance sheet states the par value per share, if there is one, beside its common stock.

What mistakes do people make with par value?

The most common is assuming a bond bought below par is a bargain or one bought above par is overpriced, when both simply reflect the yield buyers wanted.

• Expecting a premium back. Maturity pays par. The June 2026 buyers of the 2046 bond will get $10,000, not the $10,090.92 they paid.
• Reading share par as value. Apple's $0.00001 says nothing about its share price or its book value.
• Assuming TIPS par is fixed. It moves with the CPI, and the floor at the original par applies only at maturity, not to the price before then.
• Counting on par before maturity. Treasuries return par at maturity and are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, but a Treasury sold early fetches whatever the market pays.