Cassie Northern 
RIP to the penny. This shiny copper one-cent piece was first made in the US in 1792, and the last one rolled off the assembly line in 2025. With this recent decision, pennies aren’t as easy to find as they used to be for people who need them. As a result, some new payment changes are coming to remedy the issue, and one just landed in Fairfax County. Read on to learn more about this payment change and how it will work.
No More Pennies?
The end of an era: November 12, 2025 marked the last day that the United States Mint made new pennies. The Secretary of the Treasury decided this based on the increase in cost of penny production from $1.42 to $3.69 per penny. Now, the United States Mint only creates pennies that are made for collection, known as “numismatic” purposes, rather than for use and general circulation.
As good as it is to save all the extra cash, we’re now in the aftermath of such a change.
A direct result of pennies being cut off, it’s now difficult for anyone to have any in their businesses, and in government settings as well. People are not able to get pennies as easily as they once were, and since basically forever, they’ve been essential for giving someone back their exact change.
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Other states and localities are figuring out how to respond to the change. The National Conference of State Legislatures issued guidance in late 2025 preparing states for the change. Now, it’s coming to Northern Virginia. The Virginia General Assembly has also allowed for counties to create some kind of response. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors decided on a path forward in July.
The Decision
“Today in Fairfax County, we’re making a change… actually we’re kind of not making change anymore,” Fairfax County Board Supervisor Walter Alcorn joked in the opening of a video posted on Facebook on July 15th. “Because there are no more pennies being produced in this country, we have adopted a policy that we will no longer provide change in penny form whenever using cash with the county.”
That’s right; because of this new lack of pennies, they’ll no longer be used, at least until July 1, 2027. “We’re going to round up or round down to the nearest nickel,” Supervisor Alcorn said. This type of ‘Swedish Rounding‘ has been used in other situations where communities are eliminating the penny. This method rounds cash purchases down to the nearest nickel for totals ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7; rounding up to the nearest nickel for those ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9.
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Businesses in Fairfax County, and the County itself, will have to apply this new system. County departments taking cash payments will have to, no surprise, fill out paperwork to keep track of it all.
Whether this change lasts until July 1st of 2027, or will end sooner… one thing’s for sure: our favorite little bronze coins are no longer as we once knew. And, in Fairfax County at least, nickels are now the new pennies.
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