Author: milive
on March 18, 2026
When Jennifer Patrick first heard about the end of penny production, she was skeptical about how that would work. Like everyone else, the Vice President of Member Experience at Honor Credit Union has never known a time without the little copper coins that were first issued in 1793.
The idea of making a change to how we make change came with many unknowns.
After learning more about the discontinuation of the penny, Patrick feels good about the move. After all, it costs 3.7 cents to make the 1-cent penny, according to the U.S. Mint.
“Anyone doing the math can see that doesn’t make sense,” Patrick said. “It’s always a little bit scary when you don’t know what’s happening or why it’s happening, but it’s a sound business decision that they’re making.”
Here are a few more things to know about the end of the penny and things you can do to make the most of the change:
- You can still use pennies. There are more than 100 billion of them in circulation! It’s just that going forward there won’t be any new pennies added to the mix.
- Financial institutions such as Honor Credit Union can’t order pennies from the Federal Reserve anymore. As pennies get lost, damaged, or removed from circulation, there’s no way to get replacements.
- You’ll start to notice many places where you shop no longer giving change in pennies on cash transactions. They might round up or down to the nearest nickel instead. Or they may ask to round up your purchase and donate the pennies to charity.
- Honor Credit Union will still take your pennies and other loose change. https://www.honorcu.com/locations/#coin_counter that’s free for members and available to non-members for a nominal fee. The machine quickly adds up your change and prints a slip that you can take to the teller for cash back, or you can deposit the money into an account.
- More than two dozen other countries already have removed their least valuable coins from circulation, including Canada, The Bahamas, and several nations in Europe. New Zealand stopped producing 1- and 2-cent coins in 1990 and has since removed its 5-cent coin as well.
- This isn’t the first time the United States has ceased production of a coin. The half-cent, the smallest U.S. coin denomination ever made, was discontinued in 1857. Dollar coins are no longer minted for general circulation as of 2011, although collector coins can still be ordered.
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Aside from the inefficient cost of making pennies, coins overall are less important to daily commerce than ever. In fact, cash is used in only about 14% of transactions these days. Digital wallets, credit cards and debit cards have become much more popular.
When you make a purchase using a debit card, credit card or digital payment, the charge still includes the exact amount, pennies and all. So, the end of penny production won’t have any impact on the vast majority of purchases.
“There has been a big shift in consumer behavior,” Patrick said. “We’ve declined considerably in the number of transactions done using cash. That makes it an ideal time to stop making pennies.”
Honor Credit Union offers a variety of debit cards and credit cards for smooth and easy transactions with no need to round up, including some options with rewards points that can be redeemed for cash back and other perks. You can add your Honor cards to your digital wallet, too, so you can tap with your phone for convenient, safe, and secure payments right down to the penny.
You can even participate in Honor’s industry-leading Debit Card Round Up program, available to any member with a checking account and active debit card. This long-standing program supports members during this penny transition by automatically rounding up each purchase to the next dollar, with the leftover change deposited into a savings or Money Market account of your choice.
Instead of losing a couple pennies on a rounded-up cash transaction, you can save them in a virtual piggy bank that earns interest.
“It does add up over time,” Patrick said. “It helps our members save and create that safety net that we all could use.”
