Chicago-Based Burger Chain Doing Away With Exact Change

CHICAGO, IL — Chicago-based burger chain McDonald's has announced it will start rounding change for cash payments amid a nationwide penny shortage.

“Following the discontinuation of pennies nationwide, some McDonald’s locations may not be able to provide exact change,” reads a statement from McDonald’s USA. “We have a team actively working on long-term solutions to keep things simple and fair for customers. This is an issue affecting all retailers across the country, and we will continue to work with the federal government to obtain guidance on this matter going forward.”

Companies are expecting that pennies might be harder to come by in the coming months. That means that customers paying in cash might not be able to get exact change — in those cases, the total amount would be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel.

A photo circulating online shows a sign posted at an Illinois McDonald's franchisee explaining that cash change would be rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents “due to the U.S. Treasury halting production on pennies nationwide.”

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This decision comes after President Donald Trump announced he directed the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies at the start of this year. Trump cited the rising cost of making the one-cent coin, which costs about 3.69 cents according to the U.S. Mint's 2024 annual report.

“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.

The Treasury Department said it placed its last order of copper-zinc planchets in May. The last pennies were minted in June and by August, those pennies were distributed to banks and armored vehicle service companies.

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.

The government is expected to save $56 million by not minting pennies, according to the Treasury
Department. Despite losing money on the penny, the Mint is profitable for the U.S. government through its production of other circulating coins as well as coin proof and commemorative sets that appeal to numismatic collectors.

So, to avoid lawsuits, retailers are rounding down. While two or three cents may not seem like much, that extra change can add up over tens of thousands of transactions.

A spokesman for Kwik Trip, the Midwest convenience store chain, says it has been rounding down every cash transaction to the nearest nickel. That’s expected to cost the company roughly $3 million this year. Some retailers are asking customers to give their change to local or affiliated charities at the cash register, in an effort to avoid pennies as well.

“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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.