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Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank which provides small loans to poor people usually excluded from the banking system, became the first Muslim to be awarded the medal.
US House Speaker John Boehner presented the award to Dr. Yunus in a ceremony in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington DC.
"Professor Yunus set out to do what may be the biggest thing of all, and that is liberating people to seek a better life," Boehner said.
Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who belongs to President Barack Obama`s Democratic Party, hailed Yunus as "a man who has shown most of us to be wrong" in their views of how economics work.
"Banker, revolutionary and visionary are not words that are commonly associated with each other," Holt said.
Yunus and Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, with the award committee crediting his decades of efforts with lifting from dire poverty millions of people in Bangladesh and elsewhere -- particularly women.
Dr. Yunus thanked Congress for the "wonderful honor," saying it was an endorsement of his microfinance ideas.
"I am receiving it not for me but for all these women who have worked so hard to make you convinced they can take care of themselves given the financial institutional support -- not charity," he said.
He is the seventeenth man of the world to receive the two top civil awards-- Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Gold Medal.
He is also the seventh man of the world who received the top two US medals as well as the Nobel Peace Prize.
Earlier on March 5, US house speaker John Boehner and Senate’s Republican and Democrat Party leaders, in a joint statement, declared the name of Dr Yunus as recipient of the medal and the date of medal hand over ceremony.
On October 5 in 2010, the bill of honoring Dr Yunus with the award was passed unanimously.
Earlier on 9 August, 2009, president Barak Obama handed over Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dr Yunus at White House.
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