Change is coming: staying penny-wise in 2026

It has been a disappointing year for fans of the U.S. penny.

President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Treasury in February 2025 to stop minting new pennies. Since then, penny production for circulation was reduced gradually until it was completely halted in November of that year.

While a bill that would formally bring an end to the use of pennies, the Common Cents Act, has yet to be signed into law, it has made significant progress through Congress with bipartisan support.

As penny use has begun to wind down, the question of how to handle pennies that are still in circulation has plagued both banks and their customers. Grand Marais State Bank Vice President Susan Roy told WTIP that policies and messaging from the Federal Reserve Bank has shifted over the past few months.

Roy said that in the second week of January, during a routine pick-up from Loomis, their armored transportation service, which moves currency between the GMSB locations and the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, bank employees were surprised to hear that in the future, the bank would be charged an additional fee for penny pick-up, and that they would not be able to order the delivery of more pennies. She added that at that time, the bank had not received communication about the change in policy from the Federal Reserve.

GMSB opted at that point to begin limiting the number of pennies they would accept from customers. That is, until just a few weeks later, when the Federal Reserve announced another change. Roy said that the Federal Reserve rolled back their policy of charging banks additional fees for bags of pennies they were sending in. While that policy changed, she said that GMSB is still unable to order any additional pennies.

So at this time, what can Cook County residents with penny jars on their dressers do? Roy said to bring them in. “People can still come in. We’re not turning pennies away,” she said.

Similarly, customers at the North Shore Credit Union can continue to bring in their pennies. Employees at the Grand Marais branch told WTIP that they will continue to both accept pennies and give out exact change until pennies have stopped circulating in the area and the credit union has run out of them. They said that at this time, they were not aware of an official date when the policy might change.

As pennies dwindle in circulation, retail prices will need to be adjusted to the nearest multiple of five, and for those cashing checks, banks will also need to adjust any change that could require pennies.

The Common Cents Act does not specify in which direction monetary amounts should be rounded. Roy told WTIP that when the bill was introduced, the GMSB’s software was updated to allow the bank to automatically round to amounts divisible by five. She said the options are to always round down, always round up, or to round to whichever is nearer. The bank hasn’t made an official statement yet, on what the policy will be. Roy said that until they have run out of pennies, the bank will continue to hand out exact change.

Kirsten Wisniewski February 8, 2026