Congress ordered the Mint to stop making pennies for your change jar and opened the door to a cheaper nickel next.
Story Snapshot
- Lawmakers ended penny production for circulation while keeping it legal tender.
- Cash purchases may round to the nearest five cents, up or down, under the bill.
- Treasury can redesign the nickel with lower-cost metal if machines still accept it.
- Bipartisan sponsors framed the move as a cost-saving fix, not a culture war.
Congress shuts the Mint’s penny presses and sets cash rounding
Congress passed the Common Cents Act to stop minting pennies for general circulation. The law keeps the penny as legal tender, so jars of old cents still spend the same. It also allows in-person cash transactions to round to the nearest five cents. That means totals ending in one, two, six, or seven cents round down; three, four, eight, or nine round up, after tax and discounts. Card and digital payments still charge exact cents, as before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO_YR66kUdE
The law gives the Secretary of the Treasury one year to cease penny production for circulation, a timeline House committee materials laid out during debate. Sponsors pointed to cost as the driver. The penny costs more to make than its face value, and shipping and handling add friction in cash lanes. Congress built the rounding rule into statute to make checkout simple and symmetric for buyers and sellers.
The nickel’s turn: authority to cut costs without breaking machines
Congress also targeted the nickel’s stubborn math. It authorized the Treasury Department to adopt a lower-cost composition for the five-cent coin if it saves money and still works with coin-accepting devices. One option described in legislative materials is a zinc core clad with nickel, which mirrors methods already used on other coins. Lawmakers tied any change to compatibility so vending machines, transit systems, and coin sorters keep working as expected.
Congress did not order an immediate redesign of the nickel. It gave Treasury the authority and the guardrails to test and move when ready. That is a conservative way to fix a cost problem: set the goal, demand function, and let engineers prove the materials. The record shows no final composition yet adopted for circulation, which tracks the bill’s measured, permissive design.
What changes for your wallet and checkout line
Shoppers will still see prices that end in.99. Only the cash total after tax will round. A $10.02 cash total drops to $10.00; a $7.98 total rises to $8.00. Over time, the rounds tend to cancel out. The Richmond Federal Reserve has written that ending the penny is a rounding problem, not a money-stability problem, because totals swing both ways and electronic payments stay exact. Stores that prefer exact totals can nudge customers to cards for small-change precision.
States have begun issuing guidance to align receipts and registers with the new federal rule set. That helps cashiers, tip screens, and tax software treat the final amount the same way every time. Congress kept legacy pennies valid to avoid confusion and to prevent a scramble to redeem coins. That mirrors how the United States ended past small coins while letting the last pieces keep circulating until they fade out in daily life.
Why Congress moved now and how to judge the trade-offs
Supporters in both parties pitched this as stewardship: stop paying more than a cent to mint a cent, and free Treasury to cut nickel costs without breaking commerce. That squares with common sense and with a small-government instinct to end waste that buys nothing. The law does not ban pennies, change wages, or alter taxes. It trims a costly habit, defines fair rounding, and points the nickel toward cheaper materials once the machines are ready.
What to watch next
Treasury now has to test nickel recipes that meet security, durability, and machine standards. The vending and banking industries will review samples and calibration data. Congress expects the department to move only when savings are real and performance is proven. Retailers will adjust point-of-sale systems for rounding on cash. Consumers will adapt fast; they already did in countries that retired their smallest coins. The penny’s role shifts from checkout workhorse to nostalgic keepsake, by design.
Sources:
foxnews.com, congress.gov, apnews.com, govinfo.gov
