Common Cents Law close to approval: how it would affect your purchases
The House of Representatives passed the Common Cents Act. This is how rounding up cash purchases would work if the Senate also gives the green light to the project
After the United States government stopped production of penny coins in November 2025, a bill that would require rounding purchases when you do not have exact change in pennies is advancing in Congress. We explain how it would affect your purchases if approved.
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives approved the so-called Common Cents Act, so the initiative will now go to the Senate for analysis.
In addition to establishing a uniform criterion for the rounding of cash payments, the bill orders the United States Department of the Treasury to stop the minting of new one-cent coins, although existing ones will continue to have their legal value.
If the proposal becomes law, any purchases paid in cash would have to be rounded to the nearest multiple of five cents. For example, a bill of $10.02 would be adjusted to $10.00, while a total of $10.04 would be charged to $10.05. The measure would only apply to payments made with cash and would not modify operations carried out with cards or other electronic means.
The initiative responds to a problem that has become more frequent as the availability of pennies decreases. Although bills continue to generate amounts in fractions of a cent due to state and local taxes, many businesses no longer have enough coins to provide exact change.
According to some reports, this situation has left some businesses exposed to claims or even lawsuits when they cannot return the necessary change, even when the rounding ends up favoring the consumer.
For this reason, the project seeks to create a federal rule that serves as a reference for companies, banks and consumers, preventing each establishment from applying different criteria when collecting a cash purchase.
The National Restaurant Association (NRA) supported the initiative, considering that it will offer greater legal certainty to businesses that operate daily with cash.
“We called for a national rounding standard,” Sean Kennedy, advocacy director for the National Restaurant Association, told CBS News. "Most businesses round to the nearest multiple of 5 cents, either up or down, which seems like common sense. But there's no federal law that allows it. What we're looking for is certainty and minimizing frustration for customers and cash-based businesses."
Although the organization supports the project, it recognizes that the transition would have an economic impact for some establishments. The NRA estimates that rounding down due to penny shortages could represent losses of nearly $168 million a year for the sector.
"Those pennies do add up. Eliminating the penny will cost restaurants, and there's nothing we can do about it," Kennedy said. “But we look for certainty as the penny is phased out.”
Another argument behind the initiative is the cost of producing this currency. The last penny was minted in November 2025 and, according to the United States Mint, each piece costs almost four cents to manufacture, an amount well above its face value.
Despite the project's progress, the Common Cents Act still needs Senate approval before reaching the president's desk. If you get through that process, consumers who continue to pay with cash will begin to see their purchase totals automatically rounded up under the single federal rule described.
It is important to highlight that those who use cards or digital payments should not notice changes in the amount of their transactions, since these can be made for the exact figure charged by the establishment, without the need to apply any rounding.