I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1138
To ensure that United States currency is treated as legal tender to be
accepted as payment for purchases of goods and services at brick-and-
mortar businesses throughout the United States, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY7, 2025
Mr. R
OSE(for himself, Mr. NORCROSS, Ms. GARCIAof Texas, Mr. KUSTOFF,
Mrs. B
EATTY, Mr. SMITHof New Jersey, Mr. IVEY, Mr. DAVIDSON, and
Mr. G
OTTHEIMER) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Financial Services
A BILL
To ensure that United States currency is treated as legal
tender to be accepted as payment for purchases of goods
and services at brick-and-mortar businesses throughout
the United States, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Payment Choice Act 4
of 2025’’. 5
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SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 1
It is the sense of Congress that United States cur-2
rency should be treated as legal tender throughout the 3
United States, and that every consumer should have the 4
right to use cash as payment at retail businesses that ac-5
cept in-person payments. 6
SEC. 3. RETAIL BUSINESSES PROHIBITED FROM REFUSING 7
CASH PAYMENTS. 8
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Subchapter I of chapter 51 of title 9
31, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end 10
the following: 11
‘‘§ 5104. Retail businesses prohibited from refusing 12
cash payments 13
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—Any person engaged in the busi-14
ness of selling or offering goods or services at retail to 15
the public who accepts in-person payments at a physical 16
location (including a person accepting payments for tele-17
phone, mail, or internet-based transactions who is accept-18
ing in-person payments at a physical location)— 19
‘‘(1) shall accept cash as a form of payment for 20
sales made at such physical location in amounts up 21
to and including $500 per transaction; and 22
‘‘(2) may not charge cash-paying customers a 23
higher price compared to the price charged to cus-24
tomers not paying with cash. 25
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‘‘(b) EXCEPTIONS.—Subsection (a) shall not apply to 1
a person if the person— 2
‘‘(1) is unable to accept cash because of— 3
‘‘(A) a sale system failure that temporarily 4
prevents processing cash payments; or 5
‘‘(B) temporarily having insufficient cash 6
on hand to make change; or 7
‘‘(2) provides customers with a device that con-8
verts cash into prepaid cards on the premises if— 9
‘‘(A) there is no fee for the use of the de-10
vice; 11
‘‘(B) the device does not require a min-12
imum deposit of more than one dollar; 13
‘‘(C) any funds placed onto a prepaid card 14
using the device do not expire, except as per-15
mitted under subsection (c); 16
‘‘(D) the device does not collect any per-17
sonal identifying information from the cus-18
tomer; and 19
‘‘(E) there is no fee to use the prepaid 20
card that the device produces. 21
‘‘(c) I
NACTIVITY.—With respect to a prepaid card de-22
scribed under paragraph (2), the person providing the 23
card may charge an inactivity fee in association with the 24
card if— 25
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‘‘(1) there has been no activity with respect to 1
the card during the 12-month period ending on the 2
date on which the inactivity fee is imposed; 3
‘‘(2) not more than 1 inactivity fee is imposed 4
in any 1-month period; and 5
‘‘(3) there is clearly and conspicuously stated, 6
on the face of the mechanism that issues the card 7
and on the card— 8
‘‘(A) that an inactivity fee or charge may 9
be imposed; 10
‘‘(B) the frequency at which such inactivity 11
fee may be imposed; and 12
‘‘(C) the amount of such inactivity fee. 13
‘‘(d) R
IGHTTONOTACCEPTLARGEBILLS.— 14
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Notwithstanding subsection 15
(a), for the 5-year period beginning on the date of 16
enactment of this section, this section does not re-17
quire a person or entity to accept cash payments in 18
$50 bills or any larger bill. 19
‘‘(2) R
ULEMAKING.— 20
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—The Secretary of the 21
Treasury shall issue a rule on the date that is 22
5 years after the date of the enactment of this 23
section with respect to any bill denominations a 24
person is not required to accept. 25
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‘‘(B) REQUIREMENT.—When issuing a rule 1
under subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall re-2
quire persons to accept $1, $5, $10, and $20 3
bills. 4
‘‘(e) E
NFORCEMENT.— 5
‘‘(1) P
REVENTATIVE RELIEF.— 6
‘‘(A) I
N GENERAL.—Whenever any person 7
has engaged, or there are reasonable grounds to 8
believe that any such person is about to engage, 9
in any act or practice prohibited by this section, 10
any customer or prospective customer of such 11
person aggrieved by such violation or threat-12
ened violation may deliver to the person, or 13
cause to be so delivered by certified mail, with 14
proof of delivery, a notice describing, in reason-15
able detail, the conduct or events constituting 16
the violation or threatened violation, and giving 17
notice that, unless such conduct is corrected or 18
cured within 45 days after the date of delivery 19
of such notice, a civil action for preventive re-20
lief, including an application for a permanent or 21
temporary injunction, restraining order, or 22
other appropriate such relief, which may include 23
a civil penalty as hereinafter provided for, may 24
be brought against such person. 25
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‘‘(B) RESPONSE; CURE.—If, within the 45- 1
day period described under subparagraph (A), 2
the person described in that subparagraph es-3
tablishes to the customer or prospective cus-4
tomer’s reasonable satisfaction, in a response 5
provided in writing to the customer or prospec-6
tive customer, that no violation occurred as al-7
leged, or certifies that the violation alleged has 8
been corrected or cured, and provides reason-9
able assurance that no such violation henceforth 10
will be permitted to occur in the conduct of the 11
person’s business, no further proceedings under 12
this section may be undertaken. 13
‘‘(C) C
IVIL ACTION.—If a person described 14
under subparagraph (A), having received a no-15
tice described in that subparagraph, fails to re-16
spond in accordance with subparagraph (B), or 17
responds but fails to reasonably establish that 18
the violation alleged either did not occur or has 19
been corrected or cured, the aggrieved customer 20
or prospective customer shall be entitled to file 21
a civil action against the person seeking relief 22
as provided under this subsection. In any such 23
filing, the customer or prospective customer 24
shall attach to the complaint in such action cop-25
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ies of the notice given to the person pursuant 1
to subparagraph (A) and the response, if any, 2
received from such person. 3
‘‘(2) D
AMAGES AND CIVIL PENALTIES .—Any 4
person who violates this section shall— 5
‘‘(A) be liable for actual damages, together 6
with, if actual damages are less than $250, liq-7
uidated damages of $250; and 8
‘‘(B) a civil penalty of not more than $500 9
for a first offense and not more than $1,500 for 10
a second or subsequent offense. 11
‘‘(3) J
URISDICTION.—An action under this sub-12
section may be brought in any United States district 13
court, or in any other court of competent jurisdic-14
tion. 15
‘‘(4) I
NTERVENTION OF ATTORNEY GENERAL .— 16
Upon timely application, a court may, in its discre-17
tion, permit the Attorney General to intervene in a 18
civil action brought under this subsection, if the At-19
torney General certifies that the action is of general 20
public importance. 21
‘‘(5) A
UTHORITY TO APPOINT COURT -PAID AT-22
TORNEY.—Upon application by an individual and in 23
such circumstances as the court may determine just, 24
the court may appoint an attorney for such indi-25
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vidual and may authorize the commencement of a 1
civil action under this subsection without the pay-2
ment of fees, costs, or security. 3
‘‘(6) A
TTORNEY’S FEES.—In any action com-4
menced pursuant to this subsection, the court, in its 5
discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other 6
than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee, 7
not to exceed $3,000 in amount, as part of the costs, 8
and the United States shall be liable for costs the 9
same as a private person. 10
‘‘(7) R
EQUIREMENTS IN CERTAIN STATES AND 11
LOCAL AREAS.—In the case of an alleged act or 12
practice prohibited by this section which occurs in a 13
State, or political subdivision of a State, which has 14
a State or local law prohibiting such act or practice 15
and establishing or authorizing a State or local au-16
thority to grant or seek relief from such act or prac-17
tice or to institute criminal proceedings with respect 18
thereto upon receiving notice thereof, no civil action 19
may be brought hereunder before the expiration of 20
30 days after written notice of such alleged act or 21
practice has been given to the appropriate State or 22
local authority by registered mail or in person, pro-23
vided that the court may stay proceedings in such 24
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civil action pending the termination of State or local 1
enforcement proceedings. 2
‘‘(f) G
REATERPROTECTIONUNDERSTATELAW.— 3
This section shall not preempt any law of a State, the Dis-4
trict of Columbia, a Tribal government, or a territory of 5
the United States if the protections that such law affords 6
to consumers are greater than the protections provided 7
under this section. 8
‘‘(g) R
ULEMAKING.—The Secretary of the Treasury 9
shall issue such rules as the Secretary determines are nec-10
essary to implement this section, which may include pre-11
scribing additional exceptions to the application of the re-12
quirements described in subsection (a).’’. 13
(b) C
LERICALAMENDMENT.—The table of contents 14
for chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code, is amended 15
by inserting after the item relating to section 5103 the 16
following: 17
‘‘5104. Retail businesses prohibited from refusing cash payments.’’.
Æ
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