Penny's End: Who Pays When Cash Rounds Up?

What it does

This bill stops the U.S. Mint from making new pennies for everyday use (though it can still make them as collectibles), changes the 5-cent coin's composition to reduce production costs, and allows businesses and individuals to round cash payments to the nearest nickel when exact change cannot be provided. The bill also requires the Federal Reserve to report on how penny discontinuation affects low-income and unbanked communities, and establishes a process for Congress to review any future decisions to stop making other coins.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core function is to discontinue penny production and establish a legal framework for cash-transaction rounding. While framed as cost-saving and convenience, the operative mechanism creates asymmetrical rounding rules that may disadvantage cash-dependent consumers.

What the text implies

• Rounding rules are asymmetrical: consumers round down on 1–2 cents but businesses round up on 3–4 cents, creating a systematic small cost to consumers in cash transactions.
• Low-income, elderly, unbanked, and underbanked populations—who rely disproportionately on cash—bear the friction and cumulative cost of rounding, while digital-payment users are unaffected.
• The bill permits but does not require rounding, creating incentive for businesses to round up (in their favor) while consumers may round down (in their favor), but the asymmetry favors sellers in mixed transactions.
• Federal Reserve reporting requirement suggests lawmakers anticipated harm to vulnerable populations but did not prohibit it—the bill monitors the damage rather than preventing it.
• Penny discontinuation may accelerate financial exclusion: unbanked individuals and small cash-based businesses lose a unit of account and face higher transaction friction.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill offers modest convenience (rounding in cash transactions) and potential cost savings to the Mint, but creates real friction for low-income, elderly, and unbanked consumers who rely on cash and may face systematic rounding losses. The rounding mechanism is asymmetrical—businesses round down on 1–2 cent amounts but up on 3–4 cent amounts—creating a small but persistent cost to consumers. The Federal Reserve's required assessment of impacts on vulnerable populations suggests lawmakers reco

Who stands to gain

• U.S. Mint (reduced production costs)
• Retail and service businesses (reduced cash-handling costs, rounding in their favor on customer paym

Named in the bill

U.S. Mint, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Secretary of the Treasury, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, House Committee on Financial Services, Bank Holding Company Act of 1956

Where it stands

3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.

• Apr 30, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
• Apr 30, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
• Aug 7, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs discharged by Unanimous Consent”
• Aug 7, 2026 — Passed the Senate · Congress.gov: “Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

22 lobbying clients named this bill on 34 disclosure filings across 4 quarters, Sep 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $15,374,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 8 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 97% of bills with at least one filing.

Cynthia Lummis, the sponsor, reported $550,692 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $1,500 of that came from 1 PAC tied to these lobbying clients.

• American Bankers Association — $5,210,000 on 2 filings
• National Restaurant Association — $1,620,000 on 2 filings
• United Steel Paper & Forestry Rubber Manufacturing Energy — $1,600,000 on 3 filings
• Food Marketplace Inc — $1,384,000 on 2 filings
• Target Corporation — $1,170,000 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.