A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The banks are jointly responsible for implementing the monetary policy set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee, and are divided as follows:

Some banks also possess branches, with the whole system being headquartered at the Eccles Building in Washington, D.C.

Each regional bank's board has nine members. Members are of three classes: A, B, and C. There are three board members in each class. Class A members are chosen by the regional Bank's shareholders, and are intended to represent member banks' interests. Member banks are divided into three categories: large, medium, and small. Each category elects one of the three class A board members. Class B board members are also nominated by the region's member banks, but class B board members are supposed to represent the interests of the public. Lastly, class C board members are appointed by the board of governors, and are also intended to represent the interests of the public.

The Federal Reserve Banks are the most recent institutions that the United States government has created to provide functions of a central bank. Prior institutions have included the First (1791–1811) and Second (1818–1824) Banks of the United States, the Independent Treasury (1846–1920) and the National Banking System (1863–1935). Several policy questions have arisen with these institutions, including the degree of influence by private interests, the balancing of regional economic concerns, the prevention of financial panics, and the type of reserves used to back currency.

A financial crisis known as the Panic of 1907 threatened several New York banks with failure, an outcome avoided through loans arranged by banker J. P. Morgan. Morgan succeeded in restoring confidence to the New York banking community, but the panic revealed weaknesses in the US financial system, such that a private banker could dictate the terms of a bank's survival. In other parts of the country, clearing houses briefly issued their own money notes to carry on business. In response, Congress formed the National Monetary Commission to investigate options for providing currency and credit in future panics. Based on the Commission's findings and other proposals, Congress established the Federal Reserve System in which several Federal Reserve Banks would provide liquidity to banks in different regions of the country. The Federal Reserve Banks opened for business in November 1914.

The Reserve Banks are organized as self-financing corporations and empowered by Congress to distribute currency and regulate its value under policies set by the Federal Open Market Committee and the Board of Governors. Their corporate structure reflects the concurrent interests of the government and the member banks, but neither of these interests amounts to outright ownership.

Legal cases involving the Federal Reserve Banks have concluded that they are "private", but can be held or deemed as "governmental" depending on the particular law at issue. In United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation v. Western Union Telegraph Co., the US Supreme Court stated, "Instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest." The United States has an interest in the Federal Reserve Banks as tax-exempt federally created instrumentalities whose profits belong to the federal government, but this interest is not proprietary. In Lewis v. United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stated that: "The Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA [the Federal Tort Claims Act], but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations." The opinion went on to say, however, that: "The Reserve Banks have properly been held to be federal instrumentalities for some purposes," such as anti-bribery law. Another relevant decision is Scott v. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, in which the distinction is made between Federal Reserve Banks, which are federally created instrumentalities, and the Board of Governors, which is a federal agency.

The original Federal Reserve Act provided starting capital for the Reserve Banks by requiring the participating banks to purchase stock in a Reserve Bank in proportion to their assets. This stock pays a dividend out of the Reserve Bank's earnings but otherwise is quite different from common stock in a private corporation. It may not be traded, transferred or borrowed against, and it grants no ownership of the Reserve Bank's surplus. A bank's stock ownership does not give it proportional voting power to choose the Reserve Bank's directors; instead, each member bank receives three ranked votes for six of the Reserve Bank's nine directors, who are subject to qualifications defined in the Federal Reserve Act. If a Reserve Bank were ever dissolved or liquidated, the Act states that members would be eligible to redeem their stock up to its purchase value, while any remaining surplus would belong to the federal government.