ByKelly Phillips Erb,
Forbes Staff.
It
ended with a button press. On November 12, 2025, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach stepped up to a steel control panel in the penny room of the Philadelphia Mint and sent the final batch of one-cent coins clinking into a tray. With that, the penny was officially on its death bed. No new pennies will be minted, and the supply will dwindle, as old ones get disappear into forgotten piggy banks, sofa cushions and junk drawers.
Beach, a President Trump appointee from May 2025, credited Trump’s “commonsense agenda” for eliminating the penny. It was, he said, a historic moment—the first time since 1857 that the U.S. had retired a circulating coin.
