FIELD NOTES / 003 / THE UNIT COST · October 12, 2026

How Much Does It Cost to Make a Penny? More Than a Penny.

The rare product that loses money before anyone even spends it.

In fiscal year 2024, it cost the U.S. Mint 3.69 cents to make and distribute one penny, about 3.7 times its face value. A nickel cost 13.78 cents, nearly triple its face value. Both coins had cost more than they were worth every year since fiscal 2006, and that math is a big reason circulating penny production ended in November 2025.

Quick answer: One penny cost 3.69 cents to produce, administer and distribute in fiscal 2024, up from 1.43 cents in fiscal 2015. The nickel cost 13.78 cents. The Mint lost $85.3 million on pennies and $17.7 million on nickels that year. Dimes and quarters still cost less than face value.

The cost of a penny, year by year

These are the Mint’s own unit costs, as reported in its annual reports. Each figure covers making the coin plus administering and shipping it, and each fiscal year ends September 30. We list the years we could verify.

Notice the penny never once made it back under a cent. It got close in 2015 and then wandered off again.

For comparison, in fiscal 2024 a dime cost 5.76 cents and a quarter cost 14.68 cents. Those two coins still earn the government money on every piece. The penny and the nickel are the ones that cost more than they are worth.

Why a penny got so expensive

Two things drive the number: metal prices and volume.

Metal is the obvious one. In fiscal 2021, the Mint reported average spot prices up 28.1 percent for nickel, 48.2 percent for copper and 27.9 percent for zinc compared with the year before. The penny’s unit cost rose from 1.76 to 2.10 cents.

Volume is the sneaky one. When the Mint makes fewer coins, the cost of each one goes up, since the factory, the staff and the trucks don’t shrink to match. In fiscal 2022, the Mint said fewer shipments and higher metal prices “accounted for most of the hikes.” In fiscal 2024, it shipped about 3.17 billion pennies to the Federal Reserve Banks, down 23.3 percent from the year before, and the unit cost jumped about 20 percent.

The long view is from the Government Accountability Office, which reported in 2015 that rising metal prices since 2006 had pushed the unit costs of both the penny and the nickel above face value. By fiscal 2024, the Mint was reporting that for the nineteenth consecutive year.

The nickel has the same problem, only bigger

The nickel loses more per coin than the penny does. At 13.78 cents, each nickel cost 8.78 cents more than its face value in fiscal 2024. Each penny lost 2.69 cents.

The penny lost more in total, $85.3 million that year against $17.7 million for the nickel, because the Mint made so many more pennies.

The nickel matters more now because it is the new bottom of the coin stack. With no new pennies, cash totals get rounded to the nearest five cents, which is covered in is the penny discontinued. Richmond Fed economists estimated that rounding to the nickel would cost consumers about $6 million a year. They estimated that also dropping the nickel and rounding to the dime could cost about $56 million a year.

Changing what coins are made of is the other lever. In 2015, the GAO reported that the Mint estimated savings of $8 million to $39 million a year from changing the metal in the nickel, dime and quarter.

Why it mattered

The government’s word for the gap between a coin’s face value and its cost is seigniorage. When the cost is higher, that number goes negative, and the penny was negative year after year.

Treasury’s FAQ gave three reasons for stopping: rising production costs, more people paying without cash, and a penny’s low purchasing power. It projected an immediate savings of $56 million a year in reduced material costs.

Canada made the same call earlier. Its 2012 federal budget cited the penny’s “excessive and rising cost of production relative to face value,” estimated savings of $11 million a year, and stopped distributing pennies on February 4, 2013.

There is a family resemblance here to this site’s own problem. Making a penny costs more than a penny. Sending a penny online can cost more than a penny too, because card processors charge fixed fees and minimums. That math is on the math page, and what one cent can still do is in what can a penny buy.

Chris is asking everyone on Earth to voluntarily send him one. Eight billion pennies would be $80 million, a hypothetical gross total, not a forecast. The Mint’s best year on the table above still would not have made a single profitable penny.

Send one penny. It costs you exactly one.

Send me $0.01 ↗Pass the penny ↗

Not affiliated with the U.S. Mint, the U.S. Treasury or the Federal Reserve.

Sources: Mint FY2024 costs, FY2023, FY2022, FY2021, FY2020 and FY2019, FY2018 and FY2017, FY2015 and FY2014, GAO-16-177, Treasury penny FAQs, Richmond Fed on rounding, Canada Budget 2012.

By Chris. All articles