Effective April 6, 2026, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) to add new section 604.11 to address retail cash transactions.
As a result of the recent decision by the U.S. to discontinue penny production, the Postal Service has approved symmetrical rounding based on the amount of change due to a customer. This applies to all cash transactions at Post Offices, including the following:
n Purchases and payments for postage and Postal Service products and services;
n Purchasing and redeeming money orders;
n Any refunds; and
n Any other transactions of any kind when cash is exchanged, paid, or received at a Post Office™ and exact change (pennies) is not available.
This revision only applies for cash transactions when Postal Service retail associates do not have enough pennies to provide exact change for reporting units.
Although this revision will not be published in the DMM until April 6, 2026, the standard is effective immediately.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
* * * * *
600 Basic Standards for All Mailing Services
* * * * *
604 Postage Payment Methods and Refunds
* * * * *
[Add new section 11.0 to read as follows:]
11.0 Retail Cash Transactions
As applicable, for all cash transactions at Post Offices, including purchases and payments for postage and Postal Service products and services; purchasing and redeeming money orders; any refunds; and any other transactions of any kind when cash is exchanged, paid, or received at a Post Office and exact change (pennies) is not available, the cash portion will be handled as follows:
a. Except as provided under 11b, the cash portion of the change due to a customer will be rounded to the nearest $0.05 increment (e.g., $0.06 and $0.07 would be $0.05, $0.08, and $0.09 would be $0.10).
b. If the total amount of a cash purchase transaction is less than $0.05, the transaction will be rounded up to $0.05 (i.e., if the total cash purchase transaction is only for $0.01 or $0.02 or $0.03 or $0.04, then the charge would be $0.05).
* * * * *
The Postal Service will incorporate this revision into the April 6, 2026, edition of the online DMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification,
Product Solutions, 1-8-26