A high-durability paper and method of manufacture thereof. The paper may be intended for manufacturing bank notes, offering good resistance to circulation, especially good resistance to pulverulent soiling in dry medium, to friction in wet medium and to soiling in wet medium, which is moreover appropriately capable of satisfying all the manufacturing constraints, especially the printing constraints. The high-durability paper includes a fibrous substrate, and a protective coat completely covering at least one face of the fibrous substrate, where the protect coat includes at least one base layer on the substrate side and a polyurethane-based outer printability layer that covers the base layer.