One- and two-cent coins end in Slovakia. From the summer of next year, the purchase price in cash will be rounded to the nearest 5 eurocents. The Slovak parliament decided to change the law. With this step, the country wants to reduce the use of small coins, similarly to other countries in the eurozone.
When the law is signed by President Zuzana Čaputová, the purchase for cash will be mathematically rounded to the nearest five eurocents from June 2022. A cash payment of one and two euro cents will also be rounded to this amount. However, the prices of individual products or services will not be rounded, but the final total amount on the receipt.
The one- and two-cent coins themselves will remain in circulation, but the rounding of purchases should, according to the Ministry of Finance, reduce their use to a minimum. Several other euro area countries, of which Slovakia has been a member since 2009, have opted for a similar approach.
According to earlier information, one and two-cent coins make up more than half of the total number of euro coins in circulation in Slovakia.
In connection with this change in the law, entrepreneurs should save on the costs associated with handling cash. At the same time, however, they will have to pay for the adjustment of the cash registers in which they record sales.
Slovakia thus joined, for example, Belgium, which had already started withdrawing small coins from circulation less than a year ago. The European Commission announced last year that it would like to introduce uniform rounding rules for the entire euro area.
Already in 2013, experts from Brussels estimated that stopping the minting of small coins would save the euro area time and money. They estimated the amount of 1.4 billion euros saved on the production, transport and billing of these small coins.
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