Mercury and its compounds are classified as very toxic and they pose a real threat to human health. Coal combustion processes constitute one of the main sources of mercury emission to the environment. The use of hard coal by the nonindustrial combustion installations sector (among others households) is a special issue. In contrast to large coal-fired power plants, such users are not equipped with systems for reducing emissions. For this group of users, it is necessary to use hard coal with the lowest possible mercury content. In the paper, a method for the production of hard coal with low mercury content based on combined processes of dry deshaling and thermal pretreatment is proposed. The proposed method allowed for a reduction of mercury content in the analyzed coals from 43 to even 92% (in relation to its lower heating value). The produced coals were characterized by relatively low mercury contents from 1.5 to 4.8 mu g/MJ with an average of 2.4 mu g/MJ. The application of this method may potentially reduce the annual mercury emission from the Polish sector of nonindustrial combustion installations by 0.365 Mg.