The Federation has largely been portrayed as a utopia, a condition enabled by a state of abundance, most likely due to replicator technology which means everyone can generate their own resources and scarcity is virtually nonexistent. On Earth, war and poverty have been eliminated. Individuals strive for self-betterment rather than fiscal remuneration. This condition probably doesn’t extend to the outer reaches of the Federation, where substances such as latinum are used as currency on a somewhat ad hoc basis, and for the purpose of trade with other cultures, although there have been persistent references to a "credit" unit of currency used at least occasionally in the Federation.

In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Dark Frontier", Tom Paris describes it as the "New World Economy", which began in the late 22nd century and eventually made money obsolete. At the Federation space station K-7 in the original series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", set in 2267, Uhura offers to buy a Tribble for 10 credits. In the episode "Errand of Mercy", also set in 2267, Spock estimates that Starfleet has invested over 122,200 credits in his training as a Starfleet officer. In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in 2285, while on Earth, McCoy attempts to hire a ship to take him to the Genesis Planet, and is warned it would be expensive and cost many credits, we do not know if McCoy could have afforded this or how much it would cost, since he was taken into custody for breaching the secrecy of the Genesis Project immediately afterwards. The first mention of the Federation not using money came in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, where Kirk coming from 2286 is suddenly unfamiliar with the idea of using money in the 20th century whereas only a few months ago McCoy was on Earth trying to spend large amounts of money. Also, while entering the meeting room in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Scotty states that he had just purchased a boat. By the time of the Next Generation, money was considered abhorrent to many members of Starfleet, although in "Encounter at Farpoint", set in 2364, Beverly Crusher buys a bolt of fabric and requests that it be charged to her account on the Enterprise, while later that year in "The Neutral Zone", Picard tries to explain to cryogenically preserved people from the late 20th century that 24th century economics are quite different and money as they know it is not used or needed in the Federation, much as he would later in 2373 to Lily Sloane in Star Trek: First Contact.

Two years later, in 2366, in The Price, the Federation is willing to pay millions of credits for access to a stable wormhole. In the Deep Space Nine episode Explorers, Benjamin Sisko says that when he first entered Starfleet Academy, he rapidly spent an entire months allotment of transporter credits on transporting back and forth to his home in New Orleans. From this evidence, it is clear that by the late 24th century, money in the modern sense is very seldom used in the Federation, and not needed for the life of a typical Federation citizen, as replicators make the need for almost all material goods filled and a pervasive altruistic philosophy of self improvement and helping others provides for most labor, although a monetary unit called the "Credit" exists for some purposes, such as dealing with foreign governments, allotting government budgets, and access to limited resources. Money began to fade from everyday use in the late 22nd century, although it was still in fairly common use by the mid to late 23rd century.