The U.S. Senate passed the Common Cents Act with unanimous consent, moving the country one step closer to formally ending penny production and letting businesses round cash transactions to the nearest nickel.
The bill cleared the Senate on Friday after the House approved it in July, sending the measure toward the president's desk. Under the legislation, the U.S. Mint would stop producing new pennies, a shift that follows the government's decision to mint its final one-cent coin for circulation last year. Pennies already in wallets, jars, and couch cushions would remain legal tender.
The unanimous consent vote means not a single senator objected to the measure on the floor, a rare show of agreement in a chamber that routinely stalls on far less consequential matters. The Common Cents Act tackles a problem that taxpayers have been subsidizing for years: coins that cost more to make than they are worth.
The penny's retirement grabs the headline, but the bill's nickel provision may matter more to the federal balance sheet. Just the News reported that nickels cost 13.31 cents to produce in fiscal year 2025, more than double their face value. Every five-cent coin the Mint stamps costs taxpayers an extra eight cents or more before it ever reaches a cash register.
The Common Cents Act grants the Treasury authority to test a cheaper recipe for nickel production. The bill does not specify what alternative metals or alloys the department should explore, but the directive is clear: find a way to stop losing money on money.
That kind of waste is the sort of line item Washington usually ignores because no single coin seems expensive. Multiply it across hundreds of millions of coins struck each year, and the math adds up fast.
With pennies phasing out of daily commerce, the bill allows businesses to round cash transactions to the nearest nickel. A $4.32 tab rounds down to $4.30; a $4.33 tab rounds up to $4.35. The provision applies to cash payments, electronic transactions already settle to the exact cent.
Rounding is not a new concept. Canada eliminated its penny in 2013 and adopted a similar system without measurable harm to consumers. But in the United States, some state and local governments have laws on the books that prohibit rounding at the register. The Common Cents Act addresses that patchwork directly, though the specific jurisdictions affected and the mechanism for preempting their rules are not detailed in available reporting.
The bill also directs the Federal Reserve to limit "disruptions in the penny supply" during the transition. Pennies will not vanish overnight. Billions remain in circulation, and the legislation ensures they keep their value even as production ends. The Fed's role is to manage the wind-down so that businesses and consumers are not caught short.
The House passed the Common Cents Act in July. The Senate's unanimous consent vote on Friday sends it forward, though the bill's next procedural step, whether it has already been transmitted to the White House or awaits enrollment, is not specified in current reporting. No opposition from the administration has been reported.
Several open questions remain. No individual sponsors or floor managers have been publicly identified in connection with the Senate vote. The specific alternative compositions the Treasury might test for the nickel have not been disclosed. And the timeline for the penny's full phase-out from everyday commerce, how long existing coins will circulate before they effectively disappear, is left to the Federal Reserve's judgment under the bill's framework.
Congress does not agree on much these days. When every senator in the chamber looks at a policy and sees the same answer, taxpayers should pay attention, because it usually means the waste was obvious enough that even Washington couldn't defend it anymore.
