Change is coming to how we make change, thanks to the impending demise of the penny.

President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury Department, back in February, to stop minting pennies. His argument – that pennies cost more to mint than they are worth – echoed a January 2025 recommendation from the then-Elon Musk-directed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to put an end to the penny because producing 4.5 billion pennies in Fiscal Year 2023 cost taxpayers more than $179 million.

That’s not an alternative fact: The U.S. Mint said in its annual report that each penny costs 3.69 cents to make.

Already, some stores have begun running short of pennies and have had to round cash transactions up or down to the nearest five cents when customers don’t have exact change. The coin shortage has even hit some McDonald’s locations.

“Some businesses are asking cash-paying customers to voluntarily round up for donations to avoid needing pennies to make change and to stay compliant with state and local laws, while other places are rounding down for everyone (not just cash payers),” said Brandon Sheridan, associate professor of economics at Elon University, in a statement.

Rounding down will “become costly for businesses over time,” Sheridan said. Retailers have told congressional leaders a federal law is needed because at least 10 states (and some localities) have laws prohibiting rounding transactions to the nearest nickel.

Thousands of retailers and stores across the U.S. cannot get pennies, “leaving businesses to try to sort out the complicated issues that have arisen as the coins have become scarce,” said Austen Jensen, senior executive vice president for government affairs for Retail Industry Leaders Association, in a statement to USA TODAY. “Congress understands the magnitude of the problem and we’re optimistic once the government reopens, lawmakers will move to take up this issue and provide businesses with the needed clarity.”

The challenges go beyond individual cash transactions. Retailers need to assess how the currency changes may affect their point-of-sale systems and sales tax calculation, collection, and reporting, noted a June 2025 brief from accounting, tax and consulting firm PwC. “The lack of enforceable federal or state rules on rounding and transaction processing creates compliance risks, particularly for multistate operations. Inconsistent practices could increase sales tax audit exposure risk,” it read.

Are pennies going away? Can I still use pennies?

Even though the U.S. Mint has stopped making pennies, they won’t go away anytime soon. That’s because there are about 250 billion pennies currently in circulation, according to the American Banking Association.

“There will still be tons and tons of pennies out there, but their circulation will slow,” because nearly two-thirds of the about 165 Federal Reserve coin terminal facilities, which circulate coins, are no longer taking or distributing pennies, said Bill Maurer, dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and director of UCI’s Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion.

“As those coin terminals close to pennies, the circulation of pennies is slowing down. Pennies will remain legal tender, however,” Maurer said in an email exchange.

But the penny shortage “will likely accelerate the decline of penny usage,” Sheridan said. “I also expect more and more businesses to move to a cashless model in the next 10 years, while strongly encouraging card usage in the interim. This would negate the need for businesses to round transactions to the nearest nickel.”

Speaking of nickels, that coin’s days may be numbered, too. Each nickel costs more than 13 cents to produce, the U.S. Mint says.

But there’s a reason it may not happen soon, Sheridan said. “The cost to consumers of rounding transactions to the nearest nickel is estimated to be around $6 million, the cost to round to the nearest dime is closer to $56 million,” he said. “Therefore, the cost-benefit analysis for taxpayers is not nearly as clear for nickels as pennies.”

Who first proposed getting rid of pennies?

Trump wasn’t the first to suggest pitching the penny. U.S. Representatives Jim Kolbe of Arizona and James Hayes of Louisiana co-sponsored The Price Rounding Act of 1989, which would have done away with the penny and required prices to be rounded to the nearest five cents. Neither that bill nor several subsequent bills were passed.

Among the other proposed measures: the Currency Optimization Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act in 2017, proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. That legislation proposed not minting pennies for 10 years, after which the Government Accountability Office would study whether to resume minting them or maintain the suspension, according to The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network.

When were the first pennies made?

The first pennies, which the U.S. Mint began making after its establishment in 1792, featured an image of a woman representing liberty. In 1909, in honor of President Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday, Lincoln became the first president to be featured on U.S. coins.

Are pennies more valuable now?

Not necessarily. Headlines this spring hyping the “Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home” had many folks sifting through their coin stockpiles. But most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more.

The most valuable pennies – they are very rare, but could still be in circulation – are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies. A few of them were produced accidentally when the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet, told USA TODAY recently.

Depending on their condition, any 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies still circulating would likely be worth between $100,000 and $250,000, said Feigenbaum, who is also the executive director of the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation’s rare coin experts.

While you may not have any rare valuable pennies, those coins sitting in cups, drawers and various containers around your house do have value. The typical household has $60 to $90 in neglected coins at home, according to the Federal Reserve. You can take them to the bank or a coin-exchange kiosk to give yourself a nice monetary prize.

Contributing: USA TODAY’s Daniel de Visé.

Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com

What’s everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pennies are being canceled and the US Mint won't make any more. What does that mean?

Reporting by Mike Snider, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect