Banks and retailers run short on pennies as the US Mint stops making them

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NEW YORK (AP) — The United States is running out of pennies.

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President Donald Trump’s decision to stop producing the penny earlier this year is starting to have real implications for the nation’s commerce. Merchants in multiple regions of the country have run out of pennies and are unable to produce exact change. Meanwhile, banks are unable to order fresh pennies and are rationing pennies for their customers.

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One convenience store chain, Sheetz, got so desperate for pennies that it briefly ran a promotion offering a free soda to customers who bring in 100 pennies. Another retailer says the lack of pennies will end up costing it millions this year, because of the need to round down to avoid lawsuits.

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“It’s a chunk of change,” said Dylan Jeon, senior director of government relations with the National Retail Federation.

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The penny problem started in late summer and is only getting worse as the country heads into the holiday shopping season.

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To be sure, not one retailer or bank has called for the penny to stick around. Pennies, especially in bulk, are heavy and are more often than not used exclusively to give customers change. But the abrupt decision to get rid of the penny has come with no guidance from the federal government. Many stores have been left pleading for Americans to pay in exact change.

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“We have been advocating abolition of the penny for 30 years. But this is not the way we wanted it to go,” said Jeff Lenard with the National Association of Convenience Stores.

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Trump announced on Feb. 9 that the U.S. would no longer mint pennies, citing the high costs. Both the penny and the nickel have been more expensive to produce than they are worth for several years, despite efforts by the U.S. Mint to reduce costs. The Mint spent 3.7 cents to make a penny in 2024, according to its most recent annual report, and it spends 13.8 cents to make a nickel.

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“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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The Treasury Department said in May that it was placing its last order of copper-zinc planchets — the blank metal disks that are minted into coins. In June, the last pennies were minted and by August, those pennies were distributed to banks and armored vehicle service companies.

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Troy Richards, president and chief operations officer at Louisiana-based Guaranty Bank & Trust Co., said he’s had to scramble to have enough pennies on hand for his customers since August.

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“We got an email announcement from the Federal Reserve that penny shipments would be curtailed. Little did we know that those shipments were already over for us,” Richards said.

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Richards said the $1,800 in pennies the bank had were gone in two weeks. His branches are keeping small amounts of pennies for customers who need to cash checks, but that’s it.

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The U.S. Mint issued 3.23 billion pennies in 2024, the last full year of production, more than double that of the second-most minted coin in the country: the quarter. But the problem with pennies is they are issued, given as change, and rarely recirculated back into the economy. Americans store their pennies in jars or use them for decoration. This requires the Mint to produce significant sums of pennies each year.