Our Two Cents
Analysis & Commentary on the Post-Penny Economy
Curated research, expert analysis, and compliance insights from the sources shaping cash rounding policy across the United States.
- Research
- What is changing?
- Engine
- What rule applies?
- Evidence
- Why was the transaction handled that way?
Last verified: July 23, 2026. Legislative data sourced directly from state legislature websites, MultiState.us, and SST Governing Board. Competitor data based on verified public sources only.
Non-Statutory Regulatory Developments
Records in this section sit outside the enacted-statute dataset. They are agency or regulatory actions taken without an enacted cash rounding statute, and they are excluded from the enacted count, the in-force count and every state comparison on this site.
USVI Consumer Regulator Warns Against Routine Upward Cash Rounding
Virgin Islands Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs (DLCA) · Regulatory Guidance / Non-Statutory Authority · Status: Reported Regulatory Guidance
- The Virgin Islands Consortium reports that DLCA has advised businesses that pennies already in circulation remain legal tender despite the end of general-circulation penny production.
- According to the report, DLCA says retailers should not routinely round cash purchases upward merely because pennies are becoming difficult to obtain.
- The report further states that when exact penny change is temporarily unavailable, any cash-rounding approach should be fair, consistent, symmetrical, and clearly disclosed.
- DLCA also reportedly cautioned that the end of penny production does not itself authorize businesses to refuse cash or eliminate payment options otherwise required under Virgin Islands law.
Why it matters
Production status is not circulation status.
Circulation status is not legal tender status.
Legal tender status is not settlement availability.
The USVI development illustrates an emerging layer of the post-penny transition: regulatory guidance issued outside an enacted cash-rounding statute. It also highlights the distinction between a merchant's technical ability to round and the legal or regulatory authority governing when and how rounding may occur.
Source status
Centsless has located contemporaneous reporting attributing this guidance to DLCA. The underlying DLCA source document has not yet been independently retrieved. This record will be updated if the primary agency document becomes available.
Reporting source: The Virgin Islands Consortium, published September 4, 2026.
Pennies Remain Legal Tender in USVI; DLCA Warns Businesses Against Routinely Rounding UpVerified Analysis and Reporting
Primary sources tracked by the Centsless compliance team. January 2026 through July 23, 2026.
What No POS Vendor Tells You
Every major POS platform currently offering a cash rounding feature — Square, Toast, Clover, Dutchie, and BLAZE — applies a single rounding method across all locations. None adjust their rounding logic based on where a transaction occurs.
That works in states with no law. It does not work once a state passes one.
Indiana mandates rounding down on applicable government payment tiers. Washington uses an asymmetric digit mapping. Arizona mandates symmetrical rounding. New Mexico covers only tax and motor vehicle fees. Oklahoma covers only public-sector payments. Tennessee creates a safe harbor with no mandated direction.
A single global toggle cannot handle all of these correctly at the same time. This is the jurisdiction-awareness gap. It is the problem Centsless was built to solve.
Competitive data sourced from verified public sources: squareup.com, support.toasttab.com, clover.uservoice.com, dutchie.com support documentation, blaze.me. Verified April 11, 2026.
Centsless tracks legislative and compliance developments across all 50 states on a weekly cadence. Sources are verified directly against state legislature websites, regulatory agency publications, and court records before being added to this page. Patent Pending, App. No. 63/922,987. Copyright 2026 Centsless.