Sponsors (2)
Official title: To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to stop minting the penny, to permit cash transactions to be rounded up or down to the nearest five cents, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 29, 2025 by Lisa C. McClain · Last progress July 15, 2026
The bill aims to reduce minting costs and streamline cash transactions (including ending penny circulation and enabling nickel composition changes) while protecting businesses that adopt rounding rules — trading potential system-wide savings and smoother cash handling against small-dollar losses for cash-dependent consumers, transitional costs, and some legal and compliance uncertainties.
Taxpayers, consumers, and collectors: The bill lets the Mint change the nickel composition and stop producing pennies for general circulation, lowering long-term minting and logistics costs while preserving existing pennies as legal tender and allowing numismatic sales.
Cash-paying consumers (especially low-income and underbanked) and merchants: Allowing rounding to the nearest nickel simplifies and speeds cash checkouts and eases payroll handling for cash wages, reducing small-change friction.
Small businesses and financial institutions: The bill provides liability protection for merchants and financial institutions that follow the statutory cash-rounding method, reducing legal risk for routine cash transactions.
Low-income and frequent cash users: Rounding to the nearest nickel and merchant rounding-down can cumulatively cost cash-dependent consumers small but meaningful amounts; employers paying in cash could also reduce take-home pay if rounding down occurs.
Consumers' legal recourse is reduced: The statutory immunity for merchants who follow the rounding method may limit the ability of customers to sue over systematic over-rounding or errors, weakening consumer protections for small-dollar harms.
Small businesses and device operators: Changing the nickel's metal composition could force retooling or recalibration of vending machines and coin-operated devices, imposing one-time costs on small businesses and possibly raising consumer prices.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Ends general-circulation penny minting, allows a new nickel composition, permits voluntary cash rounding to the nearest nickel, and requires Fed reports on coin distribution.
Ends production of one-cent coins for general circulation, allows a revised 5-cent coin composition to reduce minting costs, and permits voluntary rounding of cash transactions to the nearest nickel. Provides legal protections for businesses and financial institutions that follow the rounding rules and requires the Federal Reserve to study and report on coin handling and distribution impacts. Also directs the Treasury to set new 5-cent coin specifications (including a zinc inner layer option), preserves pennies as legal tender if already in circulation or sold for collectors, and requires a series of reports and evaluations to Congress and the public about coin supply effects and impacts on vulnerable populations.