Why America Stopped Making Pennies, Plus 7 Odd Moments From the Coin's 232-Year Run

The United States made pennies for everyday spending for 232 years. The first batch went out in March 1793, and the last one meant for your pocket came off a press at the Philadelphia Mint on November 12, 2025, struck by the Treasurer of the United States.

You probably still have a few in a cup holder or a dish by the door, and every one of them still counts as money. The coin’s long run passed through a presidential birthday, a world war and a metal swap before it ended over a cost problem you can check with a calculator.

Sources: the U.S. Mint’s coin history pages and annual reports, and the Treasury’s penny FAQ of December 23, 2025.

1. The first cents were big and copper

On March 1, 1793, the brand-new Mint delivered the country’s first circulating coins, 11,178 copper cents, according to the Mint’s history of U.S. circulating coins. Silver coins followed a year later, with gold waiting until 1795.

Those first cents were 100 percent copper and much larger than the coin you carry. They were also slow to make. The Mint’s history page says each press could probably turn out only a couple dozen coins a minute, too few to supply the whole country. Congress let certain foreign coins left over from colonial days stay legal tender, so a shopkeeper in the 1790s might hand you someone else’s money as change.

The big cent lasted until 1857, when the Mint shrank it and changed the metal to 88 percent copper and 12 percent nickel, a mix that stayed until 1864.

2. Lincoln arrived for his birthday

In 1909, Abraham Lincoln became the first president to appear on a U.S. coin, a tribute for his 100th birthday. Before him, the cent showed a woman with flowing hair standing for Liberty, then a flying eagle, then the Indian Head design that ran from 1859 to 1909.

The sculptor Victor David Brenner drew that Lincoln profile. It’s the same face you’ll find on the very last circulating penny. The design on the back changed several times, so it works as a rough date stamp.

Flip over a few pennies from your change. Two stalks of wheat mean you’re holding a coin from 1909 to 1958. The Lincoln Memorial means 1959 to 2008, a design by the Mint’s chief engraver, Frank Gasparro, for Lincoln’s 150th birthday. A shield with 13 stripes means 2010 or later.

If you find a 2009 penny, it has one of four special backs, each showing a stage of Lincoln’s life from his Kentucky childhood to the presidency.

3. Copper went to war in 1943

For one year, the penny had no copper in it at all.

In 1943 the Mint struck cents from zinc-coated steel because copper was needed for World War II, so the cents in your great-grandparents’ change that year were a silvery grey.

A few copper ones slipped through anyway. In a 1999 note, the Mint said roughly 40 copper 1943 cents are known. The same note says they were probably struck by accident when leftover copper blanks sat in a press hopper as the steel run began.

The Mint’s own test for telling the metals apart takes a fridge magnet. A steel cent sticks to the magnet, and a copper one doesn’t.

4. Zinc took over in 1982

The penny’s metal followed the price of copper for its whole life. After the war the cent went back to a copper alloy. From 1962 on, it was 95 percent copper with the rest zinc.

As copper prices kept rising, the Mint switched in 1982 to the penny you most likely have today, a coin that’s 97.5 percent zinc and only 2.5 percent copper, with the copper as a thin coat on the outside. A 1974 law had already handed the Treasury Secretary the power to change the cent’s alloy, as the Mint’s 2012 cost report to Congress explains.

Any penny dated 1983 or later in your change is a zinc coin wearing a copper coat.

5. Each penny cost about 3 cents to make

The Mint publishes an annual report that tells you what each coin costs to make and ship to the Federal Reserve. In fiscal 2020, the penny in your change cost 1.76 cents. It climbed every year after that, to 2.10 cents in 2021, 2.72 cents in 2022, 3.07 cents in 2023 and a peak of 3.69 cents in 2024.

The fiscal 2025 report put the figure at 3.02 cents. That was the 20th year in a row the penny cost more than its face value, a streak that began in fiscal 2006. The Mint called continued production unsustainable.

What that meant in dollars

In fiscal 2025 the Mint shipped 4.8 billion pennies, which made up 59.7 percent of all the coins it sent out. Those pennies cost the Mint $143.9 million to produce. At face value, they were worth $48.3 million. That’s a $95.6 million loss on the smallest coin you carry.

You can run the same math on a coin roll yourself. At 3.02 cents apiece, a standard roll of 50 pennies cost the Mint about $1.51 to make and ship, for 50 cents of spending money.

6. The last one was struck in Philadelphia

In 2025 the Treasury Secretary decided the country no longer needed new pennies. The Mint’s annual report points to the rising cost as the main reason. The Mint said it would stop once its supply of blank coins ran out, according to a summary from the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Treasury expects to save about $56 million a year on materials alone.

The final circulating penny came off the press in Philadelphia on November 12, 2025, at a ceremony the Mint said closed the coin’s 232-year production run.

The Mint still makes pennies in small batches for collector sets, but none of those are meant for your change.

What to do with your jar

The pennies you already have aren’t going anywhere. The Treasury asks you to spend them, since every handful you put back into a register helps a store that’s running short on change.

If you’d rather deposit a jarful, the Treasury notes that some banks want large amounts rolled or wrapped first, so it’s worth a call to your branch before you haul it in.

7. Cash totals can round to a nickel

With fewer pennies around, the Treasury’s December 2025 guidance says a store that runs out of penny change may round the final total of your cash sale to the nearest 5 cents. It recommends the method from a November 2025 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Totals ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 cents round down. Totals ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9 round up.

The symmetrical rounding the Treasury recommends, applied after tax is added.

Totals ending in 0 or 5 stay put. Every other cash total moves by 1 or 2 cents, apart from a rare bill of 1 or 2 cents, which can round up to a nickel. If your cash bill comes to $7.43, you pay $7.45, while a $7.42 bill drops to $7.40. Since totals round down as often as up, the Treasury expects no overall effect on what you pay.

Your card still pays to the cent

Rounding applies only to cash. When you pay with a card, a check or a gift card, the Treasury recommends that you keep being charged to the exact cent. It also expects sales tax to be figured on your exact total before any rounding happens.

In September 2026, Congress passed the Common Cents Act, which lets stores use the same cash-only rounding when they can’t make exact change and keeps every penny already made legal tender. As of early October, Congress’s official bill tracker showed it passed by both chambers but not yet signed into law.

States are writing their own rules too. Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection calls cash rounding a temporary fix and suggests stores post a notice, while the Texas comptroller’s guidance says retailers may round to the next lower or higher nickel as they see fit.

Your pennies still count, too. The Treasury says they remain legal tender with their full value indefinitely. It also wants retailers to keep accepting them, which means three pennies added to $7.40 still pay a $7.43 bill exactly.

Before you empty your pockets

The penny lasted 232 years and finally lost out to its own price tag, but the coins left behind still buy what they always did. If you pay by card, nothing changes. If you pay cash, a normal total moves by 2 cents at most.

Tonight, tip your penny jar onto the table and tuck a small handful into your wallet for cash totals that end in 3, 4, 8 or 9.