Out of favor: The dollar's prestige, clout evaporating.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Antique-store owners in Lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal, and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars.

Hit by a free fall with no end in sight, the once mighty U.S. dollar is no longer just crashing on currency markets and making life more expensive for U.S. tourists and businesspeople abroad; its clout is evaporating worldwide as foreign businesses and individuals turn to other currencies.

Experts say the bleak outlook for the U.S. economy means it will take years for the greenback to recover its value and prestige.

At the Taj Mahal, dollars were always legal tender, alongside rupees, for entry into the mausoleum. But because of the falling value of the dollar, the government implemented a rupees-only policy last month. Indian merchants catering to tourists also have turned bearish on the dollar.

"Gone are the days when we used to run after dollars, holding onto them for rainy days," said Vijay Narain, a tour operator in the city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. "Now we prefer the euro. It gives us more riches."

In Bolivia, billboards encourage savers to turn to the euro to tuck away money earned abroad or sent home in remittances.

"If the dollar's going down . . . save it in euros!!!" say the signs popping up around La Paz for Bolivia's Banco Bisa.

And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer had to change the money into dollars first.

"If people leave here with dollars and go abroad, they lose when they exchange them," said Fabio Agostinho, one of the firm's managing partners.

In Manhattan's Bowery district, Billy LeRoy, the owner of Billy's Antiques & Props, now prefers payment in euros, he said, so he can stockpile the currency for his annual antique-buying trip to Paris.

"Whip out dollars at the French flea market now," he said, "and they'll shoo you away."

The dollar has steadily eroded in value against the euro and other currencies since 2002 as U.S. budget and trade deficits ballooned. But the U.S. credit crisis that began last summer and fears of an American recession have sent the dollar to stunning lows - with predictions the slump will continue for a long time.

While low dollar cycles have come and gone for decades, experts caution that it is now much more difficult to predict when this one will end, because the euro did not exist as competition for the dollar before.

During previous U.S. economic downturns, big foreign funds typically snapped up U.S. Treasury securities, helping to shore up the dollar. But the euro and currencies from other nations are now seen as legitimate options for investors, and interest rates are higher outside the United States - meaning the money can reap better returns on investments elsewhere.

Nations once seen as incredibly risky for investments - such as Brazil - are now considered good long-term bets. And countries such as China and Russia, with burgeoning coffers of money to invest abroad, are thought to be shifting some of their reserves or diversifying fresh income to destinations and currencies outside the United States.

"If you are an investor with a million dollars to invest, you look for the highest yield," said currency strategist Gareth Sylvester at HIFX, in Britain. "You're looking at South Africa, Australia, New Zealand."