How much does it cost to make a dime?
It cost the United States Mint 6.77 cents to make and distribute each dime in fiscal year 2025, which ended 30 September 2025: below the coin's ten-cent face value, which makes the dime, with the quarter, one of the two circulating coins the government still earns money issuing. The figure is from the unit cost table of the Mint's own 2025 Annual Report and covers metal and fabrication, allocated overhead, and distribution to Federal Reserve Banks. The Mint shipped 1,315 million dimes that year and recorded $42.7 million of seigniorage on them, the profit between face value and cost.
6.77 cents
to make and distribute one ten-cent dime, fiscal year 2025
$42.7 million
earned on the dimes shipped in fiscal year 2025 (positive seigniorage)
1,315 million
dimes shipped to Federal Reserve Banks in fiscal year 2025
5.76 cents
what one dime cost the year before, fiscal year 2024, from the same table
Cost breakdown
Each table below comes from one source, named underneath it, with the date that source last revised the figures. Everything is a United States figure in USD.
What one dime cost in fiscal year 2025, from the United States Mint unit cost table
| Component, as the report prints it | Per dime |
|---|---|
| Cost of goods sold | $0.0558 |
| Selling, general and administrative | $0.0114 |
| Distribution to Federal Reserve Banks | $0.0005 |
| Total unit cost | $0.0677 |
The dime's unit cost over three fiscal years, from the comparative columns of the same table
| Fiscal year | Total unit cost |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 5.30 cents |
| 2024 | 5.76 cents |
| 2025 | 6.77 cents |
What the dime earned the public purse in fiscal year 2025, from the shipments and seigniorage table
| Line | Fiscal year 2025 |
|---|---|
| Face value of dimes shipped | $131.5 million |
| Gross cost of making and shipping them | $88.8 million |
| Seigniorage (the profit) | $42.7 million |
| Seigniorage per $1 issued | $0.32 |
A bar for each row of the table above, 3 of them, drawn to the same scale so the spread is visible at a glance. The figure beside each bar is the one the table prints.
What changes the price
- Metal prices
- A dime is 8.33 percent nickel and 91.67 percent copper in a clad construction, per the United States Mint coin specifications, and at 2.268 grams it is the lightest circulating coin. Less metal per cent of face value is most of why it stays profitable while the nickel does not: the 2025 Annual Report records copper averaging $9,453.50 a tonne in fiscal year 2025.
- How many are struck
- The United States Mint shipped 1,315 million dimes in fiscal year 2025, 16.5 percent of all coins shipped, against 840 million the year before. Volume spreads the fixed costs, though the dime's unit cost still rose from 5.76 to 6.77 cents.
- The fiscal year on the figure
- The United States Mint publishes a new unit cost table every autumn for the fiscal year just ended, and the dime's cost has moved every year: 5.30, 5.76 and 6.77 cents across fiscal 2023 to 2025. A dime cost quoted without its year is a different number within twelve months.
Questions
Does a dime cost less than ten cents to make?
Yes. The United States Mint fiscal year 2025 unit cost is 6.77 cents per dime against a ten-cent face value, so the government earned $42.7 million of seigniorage on the year's dimes.
Why is a dime cheaper to make than a nickel?
Size. A dime weighs 2.268 grams against the nickel's 5.00 grams, per the United States Mint coin specifications, so it carries less than half the metal while bearing twice the face value. The fiscal year 2025 unit costs land at 6.77 cents for the dime and 13.31 cents for the nickel.
What is a dime made of?
A clad construction of 8.33 percent nickel and 91.67 percent copper overall, per the United States Mint coin specifications page: outer layers of copper-nickel bonded to a copper core.
Which coins make money for the government?
In fiscal year 2025, the dime ($42.7 million of seigniorage) and the quarter ($130.5 million), per the United States Mint 2025 Annual Report. The penny and nickel lost $95.6 million and $50.9 million, leaving total circulating seigniorage at $34.2 million positive.
Where these figures come from
Every figure here is for the fiscal year named beside it, because the United States Mint publishes a new unit cost table every year. The fiscal year 2025 figures cover the year ended 30 September 2025 and come from the Mint's 2025 Annual Report, read on 8 October 2026 from the copy attached to the Treasury OIG audit dated 26 February 2026, since usmint.gov refuses a scripted fetch. The per-coin costs are the Mint's own accounting, not a market price, and the composition is from the Mint's coin specifications page, which shows no date.