{"id":268068,"date":"2026-05-12T14:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268068\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:50:11","slug":"florida-begins-phasing-out-pennies-cash-purchases-now-rounded-to-nearest-nickel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268068\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida begins phasing out pennies, cash purchases now rounded to nearest nickel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/x1nd6qlgwqlr6mn4.jpg\" alt=\"New law rounds transactions to nearest nickel\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/video\/fmc-x5n84bj36merpgqa\" data-v-4292be72=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New law rounds transactions to nearest nickel<\/a> <\/p>\n<p data-v-4292be72=\"\">Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that allows vendors to round up or down to the nearest nickel since pennies are no longer being manufactured. FOX 13&#8217;s Heather Healy reports.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; Pinching pennies are no longer a thing in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Florida<\/a> as they are being phased out of circulation.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allows businesses to round up or down to the nearest nickel when you pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">For totals ending in 1, 2, 6 or 7 cents in change round down, while totals ending in 3, 4, 8 or 9 cents round up to the nearest nickel.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/vlcsnap-2026-05-12-09h10m33s308.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" data-v-2fe2fe3e=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">This comes after the U.S. Mint halted penny production last year, because they cost more to produce than what they\u2019re actually worth.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Abigail Hall, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa, says this change could impact how people pay.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">&#8220;Cash consumers tend toward people of lower incomes. There is some concern here about inequality because for cash transactions, they&#8217;re subject to this rounding procedure,&#8221; Hall said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/hillsborough-county-mobile-office-tax-collector-services\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hillsborough County launches mobile office for tax collector services<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">This does not impact how sales tax is calculated or affect official sales prices. The rounding also does not apply to people paying for items with credit cards.<\/p>\n<p data-v-871f4c88=\"\">Eliminating the penny will save the U.S. Treasury $56 million annually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Sources for this web article include information from an article by Florida Politics and previous stories done by FOX13 leading up to this bill passing.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/consumer\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-871f4c88=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Consumer<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New law rounds transactions to nearest nickel Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that allows vendors to round up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1917,47,115,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-268068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-consumer","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}