On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House passed the Common Cents Act (H.R. 3074) by voice vote under suspension of the rules — its first floor action since 2025. The bill that gives this site its name would codify the end of penny production and, as amended on the floor, establishes a nationwide but permissive (opt-in) cash-rounding framework: businesses may round cash totals to the nearest nickel, but are not required to. It also adds a Federal Reserve reporting mandate on penny supply and lets Treasury test a lower-cost nickel. It now heads to the Senate.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Common Cents Act (H.R. 3074) on July 14, 2026, sending the bill that gives this site its name to the Senate for the first time. The House took it up under suspension of the rules — a fast-track procedure for broadly bipartisan measures that limits debate, bars floor amendments, and requires a two-thirds majority — and cleared it by voice vote, so no recorded roll call was taken.
The bill had cleared the House Financial Services Committee 35-13 in July 2025 and then stalled for nearly a year before leadership placed it on the suspension calendar in July 2026. It is sponsored by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).
Rounding Is Back — but Optional
The version that passed is a substitute that restored the cash-rounding provisions an earlier committee draft had stripped, but reframed them as permissive rather than mandatory. The engrossed bill's official title is to "permit cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest 5 cents" — not "require."
- Businesses may round the total of a cash transaction to the nearest five cents, but nothing in the Act may be construed to require anyone to round.
- The scheme is symmetric: totals ending in 1, 2, 6, or 7 cents round down; 3, 4, 8, or 9 cents round up.
- Rounding applies only to cash — card, check, electronic transfer, gift card, and money-order payments are exempt.
- If an employer chooses to round a cash wage payment, it must round up, in the employee's favor.
- A safe harbor protects a business that follows the scheme from being found in violation of any federal, state, tribal, or local requirement, while preserving minimum-wage, overtime, and paid-leave obligations.
Penny Production, a Fed Reporting Mandate, and a Cheaper Nickel
The bill directs the Treasury to stop producing one-cent coins for general circulation while allowing continued production for collectors, and confirms that existing pennies remain legal tender.
The floor substitute also adds a new Federal Reserve reporting requirement: the Board of Governors must publish a strategic plan for accepting penny orders and deposits at commercial coin terminals, assess the impact of penny shortages and rounding on low-income, older, unbanked, and underbanked consumers, and deliver follow-up progress reports. In a new provision, it gives the Treasury the option to test a redesigned, lower-cost nickel — one that must save money and still work in existing vending machines.
What Happens Next
House passage is a milestone, not the finish line. The bill now moves to the Senate, where the companion measure, S. 1525, remains in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs without a hearing. If the Senate passes the House text and the President signs it, the Common Cents Act would — for the first time — codify the end of penny production at the federal level and establish a nationwide, opt-in rounding framework with legal protection for businesses that adopt it, without displacing the rounding laws 20 states have already enacted on their own.