When police take cash, it doesn’t go into some permanent evidence vault and it isn’t held hostage without rules. What happens to money seized by police is a legal process called civil forfeiture: the seizing agency logs the cash, deposits it into a government account, sends the owner written notice, and then tries to keep the money permanently by arguing it’s connected to a crime. If the owner files a timely written claim and the government can’t meet its burden of proof, the cash comes back. If no one responds in time, the money is forfeited by default and flows into law enforcement funds that pay for equipment, training, and operations.
Where the Cash Goes After It’s Taken
After a seizure, the money is counted, documented, and placed in an evidence locker or deposited into a government account. The formal forfeiture case then opens against the cash itself, not against any person. Federal forfeiture actions carry odd names like “United States v. $42,000 in U.S. Currency” because the money is technically the defendant, under a principle called “in rem.”1Legal Information Institute. Civil Forfeiture
You do not have to be charged with or convicted of a crime for this to happen. Police can take cash during a traffic stop, an airport screening, or a search and pursue forfeiture even when there isn’t enough evidence to bring criminal charges.1Legal Information Institute. Civil Forfeiture
Most cash cases never see a judge. When the seized property is worth $500,000 or less, the government can use administrative forfeiture, handled entirely by the seizing agency.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 19 USC 1607 – Seizure; Value $500,000 or Less The agency publishes notice, sends personal written notice to known interested parties, and if nobody files a claim, the money is forfeited without any court involvement. Filing a claim is what forces the case out of the administrative track and into federal court as a judicial forfeiture.
The Notice You Should Receive
The seizing agency must send personal written notice of the seizure and its intent to forfeit as soon as practicable, and no later than 60 days after the date of seizure. If a state or local agency turned the property over to the federal government, that deadline extends to 90 days.3eCFR. 28 CFR 8.9 – Notice of Administrative Forfeiture The agency must also publish public notice. If the government misses these deadlines, the owner may be able to challenge the forfeiture on procedural grounds.
The Deadline to File a Claim
This is the part that determines whether you ever get a chance to argue your case. A written claim must be filed no later than the deadline stated in the personal notice letter, which cannot be set earlier than 35 days after the letter is mailed. If you never received the letter, the deadline is 30 days after the final publication of the seizure notice.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings Miss the deadline and the government keeps the money without any hearing at all.
One thing works in the owner’s favor: federal law does not require posting a cost bond to file a claim.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings Some state proceedings require a bond, but at the federal level the financial barrier to contesting is lower than most people expect.
The government has its own clock too. Once a claim is filed, it has 90 days to file a formal civil complaint in court. If it fails to file or return the property within that window, it must promptly release the money and cannot pursue civil forfeiture of that property again based on the same underlying offense.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings That deadline is one of the strongest procedural protections available.
What the Government Has to Prove
In court, the government carries the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the money is subject to forfeiture, meaning the connection to criminal activity is more likely true than not. When the theory is that the cash was used to commit or help carry out a crime, the government must also show a “substantial connection” between the property and the offense. A vague assertion of criminal involvement is not enough.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings
Preponderance is a lower bar than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal trials. That gap is how the government can forfeit money even when it can’t win a criminal prosecution: it only needs to tip the scale slightly.
Officers typically rely on a mix of indicators to establish the probable cause needed to seize in the first place: unusually large amounts of cash with no obvious explanation, the way the bills are bundled, a drug-detection dog alerting on the currency, travel patterns associated with drug corridors, or inconsistencies in the person’s account of why they’re carrying the money. None of these alone is supposed to justify a seizure, but officers often combine several weak indicators to reach the threshold.
How to Get the Money Back
Once a claim is filed, the owner’s job is to undermine the government’s story about where the cash came from or where it was going. Strong evidence includes bank withdrawal receipts showing the cash came from a legitimate account, pay stubs or tax returns proving legal income, sale receipts from property transactions, or signed loan agreements. The more clearly you can trace the money to a lawful source, the harder it becomes for the government to meet its burden.
Forfeiture law has traps for the uninformed: wrong filing deadlines, missing procedural steps, inadequate documentation. People who contest seizures with legal representation recover their property at significantly higher rates than those who go it alone. There is no general right to appointed counsel in a cash forfeiture case. Federal law requires appointment of a Legal Services Corporation attorney only when the forfeiture involves real property being used as a primary residence and the owner is financially unable to hire counsel.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings
The Innocent Owner Defense
If the money was tied to someone else’s criminal activity rather than your own, federal law provides an innocent owner defense. You can defeat forfeiture by showing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that you either didn’t know about the illegal conduct connected to the money or that you took reasonable steps to stop it once you found out.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings
The defense works differently depending on timing. If you owned the property when the alleged illegal activity occurred, you need to prove you were unaware of it, or that once you learned, you did something reasonable like contacting law enforcement or cutting off the person responsible. If you acquired the property after the illegal conduct, you need to show you were a good-faith buyer with no reason to suspect it was tainted.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 983 – General Rules for Civil Forfeiture Proceedings On this defense, the burden falls on the owner rather than the government.
If You Win: Interest, Fees, and the Return of the Cash
A claimant who succeeds in federal court gets the money back promptly, and the protections go further than just the return of principal. Federal law entitles a claimant who “substantially prevails” to recover reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs from the government.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2465 – Return of Property to Claimant; Liability for Wrongful Seizure; Attorney Fees, Costs, and Interest
The government also owes interest on seized cash. If the money was deposited into an interest-bearing account, the actual interest earned must be returned. If it wasn’t invested, the government owes an imputed amount based on the 30-day Treasury Bill rate, starting 15 days after the seizure.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2465 – Return of Property to Claimant; Liability for Wrongful Seizure; Attorney Fees, Costs, and Interest Collecting still requires the owner to push for payment.
Where Forfeited Money Ends Up
If forfeiture succeeds, the cash doesn’t disappear into the general treasury. It flows into dedicated law enforcement funds the seizing agencies draw from to pay for their operations.
The federal government runs two of these. The Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund receives proceeds from forfeitures by DOJ agencies like the FBI, DEA, and ATF.6U.S. Department of Justice. Assets Forfeiture Fund (AFF) The Department of the Treasury Forfeiture Fund collects proceeds from forfeitures by Treasury-affiliated agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service, and the IRS.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 9705 – Department of the Treasury Forfeiture Fund Both funds pay for equipment purchases, vehicle outfitting, training programs, operational costs for investigations, and facility expenses.
State and local police can get a cut of federal forfeitures through the equitable sharing program when they participate in investigations that lead to federal forfeiture.8U.S. Department of Justice. Equitable Sharing Program Each agency’s share must be proportional to its actual contribution, measured primarily by work hours. The minimum federal share is 20 percent, so state and local agencies can receive up to 80 percent of forfeited proceeds in cases where they did most of the investigative work.9U.S. Department of Justice. Guide to Equitable Sharing for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies
In 2015, the Department of Justice sharply restricted “federal adoption,” the practice where a state or local agency seizes property under state law and then transfers it to the federal government for forfeiture under federal law. The restriction prohibits adoption for cash, vehicles, and other valuables unless the seizure was connected to a joint investigation with federal authorities or involved public safety items like firearms and explosives.10U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General Order – Prohibition on Certain Federal Adoptions of Seizures by State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies A January 2026 update to the Justice Manual revised the recommendation procedures but kept the federal nexus requirement in place.11U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Manual 9-116.000 – Equitable Sharing and Federal Adoption
State Reforms and the Excessive Fines Limit
If the seizure happened under state law rather than federal law, the rules may differ. A majority of states have tightened their forfeiture laws in recent years. Many now require a criminal conviction before the government can permanently take someone’s property. Some have raised the burden of proof to the higher “clear and convincing evidence” standard, and a handful have redirected forfeiture proceeds away from law enforcement budgets and into general funds or education accounts.
There is also a constitutional ceiling. In Timbs v. Indiana (2019), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause applies to state and local governments. Even when forfeiture is otherwise legal, the amount seized cannot be grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offense that triggered it. Courts are still working out exactly where to draw the proportionality line, but the ruling gives owners another tool to fight back when the seizure dwarfs the alleged wrongdoing.