How Much Does It Cost to Make a Nickel? (Price Guide)

The nickel is the U.S. coin that most clearly costs more to make than it is worth. Each year the U.S. Mint reports a unit cost for every circulating denomination, and the nickel's has been well above its face value for the whole recent series. With the penny no longer being produced for circulation, the nickel is now the coin people point to when they ask whether small change is still worth making.

The numbers below are the Mint's fiscal year 2025 figures, as reported by CoinShop Finder. Fiscal year 2025 ended on September 30, 2025. The Mint's annual report is the original document, and this page cites it through that summary because the Mint's site can be difficult to reach from some networks.

The Mint's unit cost covers the full expense of producing a nickel and delivering it to the Federal Reserve Banks. For fiscal year 2025 that was 13.31¢ per coin. Since the unit cost is higher than the coin's face value, the Mint records a loss on every nickel it sells to the Federal Reserve. That gain or loss is called seigniorage, which is the face value of a coin minus the cost to make it.

Yes. In fiscal year 2025 the Mint reported a loss of $50,900,000 on nickels. The loss is the difference between what the Federal Reserve pays, which is the face value, and what it cost to produce and distribute the coins. Losses on nickels are offset in the Mint's overall results by profits on coins that cost less than their face value, mainly the quarter and the dime.

The Mint does not break unit cost into line items for the nickel on this page, but several general factors affect any circulating coin. Metal is the most obvious one. The nickel is made from a copper and nickel alloy, so the prices of those metals can move its cost. Manufacturing, overhead, and the cost of shipping coins to the Federal Reserve Banks also feed into the unit cost. Production volume may matter too, because fixed costs are spread across however many coins the Mint makes in a year.

Looking at several years of Mint reports shows how the nickel's cost has changed. The figures below are the unit cost the Mint reported in each fiscal year.

The table includes the lowest unit cost in the series, which was reported for fiscal year 2016. Fiscal year 2024 was the highest of the years listed, and fiscal year 2025 came in somewhat lower. Do not read one year's drop as a lasting trend, since metal prices and production levels change from year to year.

The Mint stopped producing pennies in November 2025. That raised a question about the next-lowest coin, because a nickel costs more to make than a penny does, and it is worth more as well. Whether to change the nickel, for example by switching its metal, is a policy question for Congress and the Treasury. This page does not take a position. It only reports what the Mint has published about cost.

The Mint reports a unit cost for each denomination, and you can compare them against each coin's face value. The penny and the nickel cost more than they are worth. The dime and the quarter cost less than their face value, which is why they bring in profit. See the pages on the cost to make a penny, a dime, and a quarter for each coin's figures.