Arabic version: تقريب المبالغ النقدية ورسوم البطاقات يعيدان تشكيل تكاليف الدفع عند الصندوق
According to Cnbc, the amount consumers pay at checkout is increasingly shaped by payment method, as penny production has ended and more merchants add credit-card surcharges. Merchants have begun rounding cash payments up or down to the nearest nickel, while states and Congress consider rules for handling transactions when exact change is unavailable.
The U.S. Mint issued the last penny for circulation in November in Philadelphia, ending the coin’s 232-year production. In the preceding decade, the cost to produce a penny rose from 1.42 cents to 3.69 cents per coin, according to the Mint. An estimated 300 billion pennies remain in circulation. Twenty states have passed laws allowing or requiring cash rounding, according to the National Cash Rounding Legislative Observatory published by Centsless.
The bipartisan Common Cents Act would allow, but not require, merchants to round a total to the nearest nickel when exact change cannot be provided. Under the proposal, totals ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 cents would be rounded down, while those ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9 cents would be rounded up. The bill has cleared both the House and Senate, though differences between the versions must be resolved before final passage.
Credit card use has risen as cash use has declined. Consumers made an average of 47 payments a month in 2025, including 16 credit-card payments, 15 debit-card payments and six cash payments, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. In 2016, cash was used in 14 average monthly transactions, compared with eight for credit cards.
Visa and Mastercard have permitted merchants since 2013 to impose surcharges on credit-card transactions, but not debit-card transactions. The average swipe fee was 2.35% of a purchase in 2024, up from 2.02% in 2010, according to the National Retail Federation. A pending settlement in a retailer antitrust lawsuit against Visa and Mastercard could reduce swipe fees and give merchants more flexibility to reject certain higher-fee credit cards, though retailers generally oppose the settlement.
