Confusion Marks the Last Day of U.S. Cents

The last circulation strike cent was produced on November 12 in Philadelphia, and that means the U.S. “penny problem” is only going to get worse. As the number of 1-cent coins in circulation continues to dwindle, many stores have resorted to rounding cash purchases down to the nearest 5 cents. Because the federal government has not provided guidelines on how to phase out the cent, businesses are left to their own devices to decide how to best proceed. To avoid lawsuits and customer complaints, many retailers are choosing to just round down. Unable to order fresh supplies of pennies, banks are also rationing them.

Convenience stores are some of the hardest hit by the shortage. While two or three cents may not seem like much, that extra change can add up over tens of thousands of transactions. Kwik Trip announced it is rounding down to the nickel, which is expected to cost the company up to $3 million this year. Many stores are urging customers to pay in exact change. Others are hosting promotions for customers to bring in extra cents they have at home. Some retailers, in an effort to avoid the cent conundrum altogether, are asking customers round up their purchases to the nearest dollar by donating their change to local or affiliated charities. 

What’s Next?

The final U.S. 1-cent coins that were struck this week will be auctioned off. The U.S. Mint stopped making cents for circulation back in June after President Donald Trump called for a halt in cent production on Super Bowl Sunday. The Treasury Department estimated shortages would start in early 2026, but they’ve already begun. “We have been advocating the abolition of the penny for 30 years. But this is not the way we wanted it to go,” says Jeff Lenard with the National Association of Convenience Stores.

The U.S. Mint issued 3.2 billion 1-cent coins in 2024, the last full year of production. However, the problem with cents is they are rarely recirculated back into the economy after becoming pocket change, which is why the mint produced so many of them each year. Besides Americans’ cent-hoarding habit, another issue is also preventing our smallest denomination from circulating: the closure of dozens of coin terminals to cent withdrawals and deposits, meaning that parts of the country that may have some surplus cents are unable to get the coins to areas of the country with shortages. 

“We don’t want the penny back,” says Lenard. “We just want some sort of clarity from the federal government on what to do, as this issue is only going to get worse.”