Coin Counting Machines Still Exist: Which Banks Have Them?

Remember when you could take your piggy bank full of coins to the local savings institution and have them counted out for crisp bills or deposits?

Sometimes those coins could accumulate to hundreds of dollars, with annual totals rivaling the cash rewards from cash back credit cards.

Fortunately, those days aren't completely gone.

We have identified a few banks that still provide this service, albeit with a possible small fee.

In that case, we also show you other free ways to convert your coins.

Which Banks Have Coin Counters?

Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and other major national banks no longer provide coin-counting machines to customers or to non-customers.

The reason:

The big banks claim that these machines cost more to maintain than the value that is delivered to customers.

What Banks Have Free Coin Counting Machines

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.

Be sure to check your quarters to see if they were made in 1964 or earlier. Before 1965, U.S. quarters were made of 90 percent silver, making them worth significantly more than the $0.25 value.

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 2021, it cost $0.0210 to produce one $0.01 coin, according to an annual 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 by 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 Alternatives With Coinstar & Other Stores

Gift Cards & Participating Charities Through Coinstar

The best cash-out option to avoid losing a significant of money to fees is the electronic gift code or charitable donations.

Coinstar Redemption

Stores with Coin Counter Machines

Rather than going to the bank, you might run into a coin-counting machine at one of the places to visit the most: a grocery store or supermarket.

With cash transactions happening all the time, it makes sense that these machines are readily available at these stores.

Note: Every single store, even if it's under the same chain, may not have a machine. If you're thinking about making the trip, we suggest calling the store first.

Stores With Coinstar Coin Counter Machines