United States Plans to Discontinue Manufacturing Penny Coins - United States to Cease Manufacturing Penny Coins
USA to Cease Production of the Penny by 2026
After 230 years of circulation, the United States will discontinue the production of the one-cent coin, as announced by the Treasury Department this Thursday. The last order for penny blanks was placed this month, and the distribution of new coins in this denomination will cease in early 2026.
The decision to halt production is based on escalating costs of producing the zinc and copper penny, which increased from 1.3 cents per coin in 2012 to 3.69 cents today. The move is expected to yield an annual savings of $56 million.
President Donald Trump directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to terminate production in February. In the future, cash transactions will be rounded to the nearest five-cent value, effectively making pennies obsolete in monetary transactions.
The U.S. counterpart to the penny is the nickel. The current circulation of pennies reaches approximately 114 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Lincoln's image has adorned the penny since 1909.
Similar debates have been waged in the Eurozone regarding the necessity of the one-cent euro coin. Countries like Finland have effectively phased out the coin, while Germany has advocated for rounding cash transactions to the nearest five Euro-cent, which would also render two-cent coins obsolete, as they have no comparable U.S. currency.
Germany is yet to announce an official plan to discontinue the one-cent euro coin. The ongoing discussions about the relevance of these coins in the EU are driven by economic and environmental costs associated with their production and circulation.
While mandatory rounding has not been implemented in Germany yet, public opinion across the EU supports the abolition of the smallest denominations. However, any such decision would require an EU-wide agreement, as one- and two-cent coins remain valid legal tender in the Eurozone.
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In the future, cash transactions within the United States will be rounded to the nearest five-cent value, making the US penny, or one-cent coin, obsolete in these transactions. The US counterpart to the penny, the nickel, remains in circulation.
