Remember the days you could take your piggy bank full of coins to the local savings institution and have them counted out for crisp bills or deposit. Fortunately, those days aren’t entirely gone. MyBankTracker has identified a handful of banks still offering this service, although there may be a small fee. In that case, we also show you other ways to convert your coins for free.
Which Banks Have Coin Counters?
Some top national banks continue to provide coin counting machines to customers and to non-customers. Many smaller community banks and credit unions are also likely to have coin counting machines.
Coin counting machine fees
| Bank | Customers | Non-customers |
|---|---|---|
| BB&T | Free for $25 or less, 5% fee for more than $25 | 10% fee |
| JBT | Free | 5% fee |
| Manasquan Bank | Free | - |
| Home State Bank | Free | 10% fee |
| First County Bank | Free | - |
| Shelby Savings Bank | Free | - |
| Cape Bank | Free | Free |
| Hancock County Savings Bank | Free | - |
| Republic Bank (NJ/PA) | Free | Free |
| People's United Bank | Free | - |
| American Eagle Federal Credit Union | Free | Free |
| Chase | No Counters | |
| Citibank | No Counters | |
| Bank of America | No Counters | |
| Capital One | No Counters | |
| TD Bank | No Counters | |
| PNC Bank | No Counters |
BB&T Bank still has these machines in many of their branches, but not all. For customers, it should be no surprise that the service is free, with the exception of BB&T. For non-customers, however, there is a definitely going to be a fee that’s equal to a percentage of the coins counted.
Banks Accept Coins Deposits in Coin Wrappers
After reaching out to all the banks, we found that every single one of them will provide coin wrappers for free, regardless of whether or not you are a customer.
Coin wrappers are paper wrappers that come color coded for different coin denominations. Each wrapper is used to roll 40 to 50 coins in denominations of 25 cents or less. Wrappers do exist for 50-cent and one-dollar coins.
If you’ve got a lot of coins, it could be a time-consuming task to stuff them into the wrappers. Once you’ve rolled the coins, just bring them to the bank for deposit or exchange. For customers of the bank, it is free. For non-customers, it’s not as simple — read below.
Exchange Coins For Free At Banks
Although every bank will give out free coin wrappers, not every bank will accept your rolled coins if you are a non-customer.
Chase Bank happens to have rather generous policies for non-customers, who can exchange up to $200 in coins as long as they’re in coin wrappers. If you’ve got more than $200 in coins, there’s a simple trick: just visit multiple Chase branches.
Did you know? It costs more than a penny to produce a penny. In 2014, it cost $0.166 to produce one $0.01 coin, according to a report by the U.S. Mint. The high cost of penny production has led many people to advocate phasing out the coin denomination.
While Chase will happily accept your coins, other banks I contacted will not. Most of them have a policy of not converting coins to bills for non-customers. In actuality, however, tellers would perform the coin exchange if the coins were wrapped and for a small amount between $10 to $20.
Again, you can use the same trick here but going to multiple bank branches. If you have hundreds of dollars in coins, be prepared to make trips to many different banks.
Otherwise, your other option would be to just open an account with a bank that has a coin counting machine — not exactly the best option I must say.
Coin Counting Alternative With Coinstar & Other Stores
Coinstar is a company that offers kiosks for counting coins. You can turn the coins into cash, electronic gift codes, or charitable donations. Coinstar kiosks can be found most often in major U.S. supermarkets.
Coinstar charges a fee of 10.9% if you want the coins converted to bills. If you just want cash from your coins, banks are the cheaper option. But, as mentioned above, if you convert those coins into branded gift cards through Coinstar, it is completely free (see other ways to avoid Coinstar’s fee).
How it works
- You can bring your coins without having to have them sorted or wrapped. They simply have to be free of dirt, debris, and other obstructions that could block the machine from accepting the coins.
- Select the exchange option that you prefer.
- For cash, you’ll get a paper voucher that you bring to the cashier. For the electronic gift code, it will be printed on your receipt. For donations, you’ll receive a receipt of your donation for tax purposes.
Gift Cards & Participating Charities Through Coinstar
| Branded eGift cards | Participating charities |
|---|---|
| Amazon | American Red Cross |
| AMC Theatres | Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals |
| Applebee’s | Feeding America |
| Apple iTunes | The Humane Society of the United States |
| Best Buy | Leukemia & Lymphona Society |
| Build-a-Bear Workshop | UNICEF |
| Lowe’s | World Wildlife Foundation |
| Forever 21 | |
| The Home Depot | |
| Old Navy | |
| Sears | |
| Sephora | |
| Starbucks | |
| Toys R’ Us/Babies R’ Us |
The best cash out option to avoid losing a significant of money to fees is the electronic gift code or charitable donations.
| Coin exchange option | Fee | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Cash voucher | 10.9% | Turn in the cash voucher to a cashier |
| eGift Card | None | Gift code is printed on the receipt |
| Charitable donation | None | Donation is automatically made -- with a receipt for tax purposes |
Stores with Coin Counter Machines
| Stores |
|---|
| Wal-Mart |
| Winn Dixie |
| Food 4 Less |
| Vons |
| Ralphs |
| ShopRite |
| The Food Emporium |
| Safeway |
| Acme |
| Kroger |
| Jewel |
