The penny is one step closer to officially and permanently being no more.
The House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Common Cents Act on Monday, Sept. 14, a bill that prohibits the Treasury Department from making any additional pennies, except for collector coins. The legislation also establishes a framework for rounding cash transactions to the nearest nickel if exact change cannot be given.
The House’s passage of this legislation follows the U.S. Mint’s decision to stop minting pennies in November 2025.
In this photo illustration, rolls of pennies are seen on a table on February 10, 2025 in New York City.
While the bill will end the production of new pennies, it allows existing pennies to remain legal tender, or an official form of money in the United States. Apart from the now defunct one-cent coin, the legislation also allows the Treasury to begin producing nickels with a lower-cost composition.
The Common Cents Act, led by House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Michigan, and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-California, will now move to the Senate. If the Senate passes the bill, it would then land on President Donald Trump‘s desk for his signature.
“If the federal government is spending nearly four cents to make a penny worth one cent, something is broken,” McClain said in a Monday news release. “House Republicans are proving that common sense still has a place in government by cutting waste and protecting taxpayer dollars.”
A second death
The penny has been effectively dead for nearly a year, with the U.S. Mint stopping production in November 2025.
At the end of its life, the penny was actually more costly to produce than it was worth.
“The American taxpayer has been repeatedly shortchanged” over the last decade, Treasurer Brandon Beach said at the time, as rising production costs meant that each 1-cent penny actually cost about 3.69 cents to produce.
The U.S. Mint said it expected to save $56 million annually by no longer producing pennies.
“The rapid modernization of the American wallet” has also made the penny far less useful in a 21st-century economy, Beach added.
At the time of the retirement, the Treasury Department said that there were an estimated 300 billion pennies in circulation — “far exceeding the amount needed for commerce.”
Contributing: Phaedra Trethan and Mike Snider, USA TODAY
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@usatodayco.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A second death? House votes to end penny production permanently
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