The House Passed the Penny Bill. Rounding Your Change Is Still Optional
A year ago the Mint stopped making the penny. On Tuesday the House finally voted on what should happen to your change. The answer it landed on: whatever the cashier decides.
The last time we wrote about the penny, the story was that nobody had passed a law about your change. That's no longer quite true.
On July 14, 2026, the House of Representatives passed the Common Cents Act. It did so under suspension of the rules — the fast track the House reserves for bills it expects to clear with two-thirds support — and it passed on a voice vote, with no roll call recorded. The bill now goes to the Senate.
If you've been waiting for someone to settle the question of what a store owes you when your total ends in a stray three cents, read the fine print before you exhale. The House restored the rounding rule its own committee had deleted last fall. Then it wrote the rule so that no one has to follow it.
The part that's a command
Strip the bill down and one instruction is unambiguous. The Secretary of the Treasury "shall cease production of one-cent coins for general circulation." The Mint can still strike pennies to sell to collectors as numismatic items, but the everyday coin, the one that ends up in a jar on your dresser, stops being made.
This mostly codifies something that already happened. The Mint struck its last circulating penny in November 2025, on an executive decision. What the bill adds is the force of statute — if it becomes law, restarting penny production would take another act of Congress, not a change of mind at Treasury.
The pennies already out there don't turn into scrap. The bill keeps them legal tender "for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." Your penny jar still spends.
The part that isn't
Here's where the bill's own history gets strange, and worth tracing, because the version that passed is the third distinct answer Congress has given to the same question.
As Reps. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced it in April 2025, H.R. 3074 was a command. Cash totals ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 cents "shall be rounded down"; totals ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9 cents "shall be rounded up." Shall. A merchant would have had to do it.
Then the House Financial Services Committee rewrote the bill as a substitute and reported it out in September 2025 with the entire rounding section removed. The title still promised "to require cash transactions to be rounded" — but the body no longer contained a rounding rule at all. For most of a year, that gutted version sat on the calendar.
The version the House passed on Tuesday put rounding back. And it changed one word that changes everything. A person selling goods in a cash transaction "may, if exact change cannot be provided at that time," round to the nearest five cents. May. Not shall.
In case that wasn't clear enough, the bill adds a rule of construction near the end: "Nothing in this Act may be construed to require any person to round a payment." The rounding math is spelled out to the cent — 1, 2, 6, 7 down; 3, 4, 8, 9 up; a total of one or two cents rounds up to a nickel — but every line of it is permission, not obligation.
There's a small fairness feature tucked in. When rounding runs the other way — a business paying cash to a customer, or an employer paying cash wages — the bill says the rounding, if it happens at all, has to land in the customer's or employee's favor. A boss rounding a cash paycheck rounds up.
So what actually changed for you
Legally, as of this week: nothing yet. One chamber passed a bill. The Senate hasn't taken it up, and a bill that passes only the House is not a law. The penny is already gone from the mint line regardless.
What the House vote settles is the direction of travel, not the destination. If the Senate passes this text and the President signs it, the country's answer to "does my total get rounded?" becomes: your cashier may, and here's exactly how if they do, and no, they don't have to.
Which means the practical advice we gave in July hasn't moved. A store that rounds your cash total to the nearest nickel isn't breaking a rule. A store that keys in the exact three cents and makes you dig for pennies isn't breaking one either. The bill the House just passed would, if enacted, write that ambiguity into federal law rather than resolve it — permission for both, a mandate for neither.
That's a defensible way to legislate. Rounding rules can get tangled fast, and leaving room for a small merchant to just charge the exact amount avoids a lot of them. But it's worth being honest about what a "requires cash transactions to be rounded" headline is describing. The requirement is on the Mint, to stop making the coin. The rounding was, is, and under this bill remains a choice.
What This Means for You
If you pay cash: nothing changes today. If this becomes law, a store may round your total to the nearest five cents when it can't make exact change — up or down — but it won't be required to. A merchant who always rounds up is doing something the bill permits but does not bless; the rounding rule is symmetric by design.
If you pay by check or card: the rounding question never reaches you. The bill's rounding language applies to cash. Non-cash payments are charged the exact amount, down to the cent.
If you run a register: watch the Senate, not the calendar. Until the Senate acts and the President signs, your rounding policy is still entirely your own call — and even under the bill as passed, it stays your call. Posting whatever you decide at the counter is still the cheapest way to keep a two-cent disagreement from becoming an argument.
Sources
- H.R. 3074, the Common Cents Act — bill text, including the version considered under suspension "with amendments." Source of the permissive "may … round," the 1/2/6/7-down and 3/4/8/9-up scheme, the one-or-two-cents-round-up rule, the "shall cease production of one-cent coins" language, and the rule of construction that nothing in the Act requires rounding
- H.R. 3074 — all legislative actions, showing the April 2025 introduction, the September 2025 committee substitute (Report 119-235), and the July 14, 2026 House passage under suspension of the rules
- ABA Banking Journal, "Common Cents Act clears House" — July 14, 2026; confirms the voice vote and the sponsors
Disclaimer: This article is news and general information only, not legal or financial advice. H.R. 3074 has passed the House but not the Senate, and has not been signed into law; its text can still change before any further vote.