A debate has existed within the United States government and American society at large over whether the one-cent coin, the penny, should be eliminated as a unit of currency in the United States. The penny remains in circulation but has not been produced for circulation since 2025. The penny costs more to produce than the one cent it is worth, meaning its seigniorage is negativethe government loses money on every penny that is created.
In November 2025, following a February 2025 order from President Donald Trump, the U.S. Treasury halted the production of pennies for circulation, while continuing to mint uncirculated pennies for collectors. However, the coin remains legal tender and in circulation, as only an act of Congress can eliminate forms of currency.
Following the end of circulating penny production, the Federal Reserve stopped handling pennies at most of its terminals, leading to regional penny shortages. Some affected businesses began rounding cash transactions to the nearest five cents when pennies were unavailable. The Federal Reserve reversed its decision in January 2026, easing the shortages. However, with no new pennies produced for circulation, penny circulation is expected to gradually decrease over time.
In September 2026, the Common Cents Act, which mandates the government to permanently cease minting pennies for circulation but allows for the continued production of uncirculated pennies, passed Congress. The Common Cents Act permits businesses to round cash payments to the nearest five cents, but only if pennies are unavailable.
While the Common Cents Act does not mandate cash rounding nor remove the penny from circulation, several bills have been introduced in Congress since 1990 to mandate cash rounding and thus withdraw the penny from circulation. Such bills, all of which have died in Congress, would leave the five-cent coin (nickel) as the lowest-value circulating coin in the United States.
Other countries have also withdrawn coins no longer worth producing, such as Canada withdrawing its penny from circulation in 2013. The most recent time that the United States withdrew its lowest-value coin from circulation was with the half-cent coin (ha'penny) in 1857, at which time the coin was worth approximately cents in dollars.
Proposed legislation In 1990, United States Representative Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) introduced the Price Rounding Act of 1989, H.R. 3761, to eliminate the penny in cash transactions, rounding to the nearest nickel.H.R.3761 Price Rounding Act of 1989 (Introduced in House IH) In 2001, Kolbe introduced the Legal Tender Modernization Act of 2001, , and in 2006, he introduced the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation (C.O.I.N.) Act, . While the bills received much popular support from the public, all failed to become law. Kolbe responded to criticism that the rounding system would increase prices that could hurt the consumer and stated that it "favors neither the consumer nor the retailer because the probability of rounding up or down is 50 percent either way – it would all come out even in the end."
In 2017, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) introduced , the Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings (C.O.I.N.S.) Act of 2017, that would have stopped minting of the penny for general circulation for 10 years and studied the question of whether production would cease thereafter. The bill died at the end of the 115th Congress with no hearings held by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
On April 30, 2025, Representatives Lisa McClain (R-MI) and Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced the Common Cents Act, , a bill to formalize an end to penny production for general circulation and permit cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel. The House of Representatives passed the Common Cents Act on July 14, 2026; the Senate passed its version of the bill on August 7, and the House must pass the Senate-approved version of the bill to send it to the President. On September 28, 2026, Congress passed the Common Cents Act, sending it to Donald Trump, who as of September 29, 2026 is expected to sign it.
2025 production halt
On February 9, 2025, President Donald Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending. While it is Congress that authorizes the Treasury regarding what coins to mint, the Treasury secretary has the authority to mint coins in amounts they deem necessary. Trump's move has been received with general approval, including from Colorado governor Jared Polis, a Democrat who has been pushing to get rid of the penny since before Trump's inauguration. On May 22, 2025, the Treasury announced that the Mint had stopped purchasing penny planchets; production would cease at their exhaustion. After a slowdown in the summer, penny production for general circulation was halted on November 12, 2025, with penny production continuing for collector sets and commemorative purposes.
By mid-November 2025, the Federal Reserve had stopped handling pennies at over half its terminals; but this decision was reversed in January 2026. The closures exacerbated regional penny shortages. Businesses affected have adopted differing responses, such as requiring payment in exact change or rounding cash transactions to the nearest five cents. Still, there are no federal regulations on rounding cash transactions, and several cities require exact change to be given. Amid potential confusion among stakeholders, some states have provided recommendations for rounding or have considered legislation. As of July 2026, 20 states have enacted legislation permitting businesses to round cash transactions when pennies are unavailable; Arizona is the only state with mandatory cash rounding when pennies are unavailable.
Arguments Production and distribution costs
Production at a loss In 2024, the US mint produced 3,225,200,000 pennies at a cost of 3.69 cents per penny, which resulted in an annual loss to taxpayers of $85.3 million. Further, as the price of the raw materials from which the penny is made exceeds the face value, there is a risk that coins will be illegally melted down for raw materials.
Increased cost Commissioned by Jarden Zinc, which supplies zinc "penny blanks" to the Mint, a 2012 report conducted by Navigant Consulting found that the government would lose money without the penny. According to the industry's front group Americans for Common Cents' website, "First, the Mint's fabrication and distribution costs include fixed components that will continue to be incurred whether or not the Mint produces the penny. Navigant estimates this fixed component at in FY 2011. Plus, there is in Mint overhead allocated to the penny that would have to be absorbed by the remaining denominations of circulating coins without the penny. Second, under current Mint accounting, the nickel costs eleven cents to manufacture. In a scenario where nickel production doubled without the penny, Navigant concludes that with existing fixed costs, eliminating the penny would likely result in increased net costs to the Mint of , relative to the current state."Navigant Consulting: Impact of Eliminating the Penny on the United States Mint's Costs and Profit in the Fiscal year 2011 by Rodney J. Bosco and Kevin M. Davis
Effort to transport and count In 2024, 57.5% of coins minted were pennies. These 3.2 billion pennies at 2.5 g each had a combined weight of 8,000 t (8,818 short tons), and were transported by secure and therefore expensive means from the Mint to banks and then on to stores. Store employees spend valuable time counting low-value pennies at the end of a work shift. Banks often return loose coins in an armored truck to be sorted and wrapped so as to be ready to be given out to customers. This process costs on the order of 10 cents per roll (a 20 percent charge on a roll of 50 pennies).
Limited utility of pennies
Lost productivity and opportunity cost of use
With the median wage in the US being per hour in 2024, it takes 1.5 seconds of work to earn one cent. Thus pennies are discarded or avoided as their value is minimal compared to the time to count, use, and manage them.
Limited utility
Pennies are not accepted by most vending machines, or by most toll booths, and are generally not accepted in bulk. Economist Greg Mankiw says that "The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but ... the penny no longer serves that purpose." Pennies often drop out of circulation (for example, they are stored in jars at home) and due to their low value are sometimes even thrown away. This contributes to the need for the United States Mint to produce more pennies than all other coins, accounting for 57.5% of all coin production in 2024.
Public preference for cashless transactions
According to a 2025 Federal Reserve study, cash transactions in 2024 dropped to only 14% of transactions. Persons aged 55 and older used cash for 19% of transactions, while those aged 18–24 used cash for only 10%.
Effect on prices
Prices would not be higher Research by economics professor Robert Whaples in 2007, using data on nearly 200,000 transactions from a multi-state convenience store chain shows, that rounding would have virtually no effect. On average, consumers would gain a tiny amount about 0.025 ¢ per transaction.Robert Whaples, "Time to Eliminate the Penny from the U.S. Coinage System: New Evidence," Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 33, issue 1, pp. 139–146 (2007).
Elimination would not hurt the poor Given that rounding (based on cash transaction totals being rounded up and down to the nearest multiple of five cents) is neutral at the transaction level, and that cash transactions are faster without having to deal with extremely low-value coins, people who disproportionately deal in cash transactions would be helped more by elimination of the penny. To gain consumer favor for reducing the use of the penny it could be legislated (either on a state or federal level) that all cash transactions totals over a nominal amount (say 25 cents) would need to be rounded down to the nearest multiple of five cents. Rounding down cash transaction totals is a win for the merchant too as it encourages cash sales and thereby avoids the electronic payment fee (typically on the order of two percent of the balance).
Public opinion According to a national survey conducted in January 2017 by the polling team of Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the Dollar Coin Alliance, there is broad support for eliminating the penny, finding that 77 percent of voters support suspending production of the penny. When told of the savings made by suspending the penny, support jumped to 84 percent. The debate was featured on an episode of The West Wing in 2001, as several news outlets recalled in the context of the debate in 2025.
Historical precedents
There has never been a coin in circulation in the U.S. worth as little as the penny was worth in 2025, although other countries have coins with less purchasing power in circulation. Because of inflation, one nickel in 2025 has parity in value to a penny in 1978, and a dime in 2025 has parity in value to a penny in 1967.
Environmental and health hazards
Zinc can cause anemia or gastric ulceration in babies that inadvertently ingest pennies made after 1982. A single penny can kill a pet. Also, the mining of zinc and copper causes toxic pollution and is especially undesirable when considering the valuable metals being used to produce a coin with little utility.
Nickels