An associate dentist is a general dentist who practices without an ownership share, and the closest thing to a national associate figure is the ADA's Survey of Dental Practice: its 2025 data put employed (non-owner) general dentists at a median of $165,520 in net income, with the middle half between $129,280 and $191,470.
BLS puts all general dentists at a $170,950 median wage (May 2025).
Here is the full picture: percentiles, hourly and monthly math, pay by setting, state and experience, and what job listings post.
National associate dentist pay: median, 10th–90th percentile
There is no federal wage series called “associate dentist.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks dentists, general (SOC 29-1021) as a single occupation, and its May 2025 estimates (released May 15, 2026) are the broadest national benchmark: a median of $170,950 a year, a mean of $191,350, and 124,390 jobs nationwide.
| Dentists, general — BLS OEWS, May 2025 | Annual wage |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $86,250 |
| 25th percentile | $125,710 |
| Median | $170,950 |
| 75th percentile | $224,040 |
| 90th percentile | $319,630 |
That BLS series takes in more than associates.
The OEWS survey excludes the self-employed along with owners and partners in unincorporated firms — but it still counts dentist-owners who run their practice through a corporation, so the general-dentist median mixes associates and incorporated owners rather than measuring associates alone.
BLS's Employment Projections put self-employed general dentists at 12.4% in 2025, and inside offices of dentists specifically (NAICS 621200) the general-dentist median was $169,900 in the same May 2025 release.
The associate-specific number: ADA HPI's employed-dentist median
The most associate-specific national figure comes from the ADA Health Policy Institute's Survey of Dental Practice.
Its 2025 data put the median net income of employed (non-owner) general dentists in private practice at $165,520, with the middle half between $129,280 and $191,470.
HPI's “employed” category means salary, commission, percentage or associate arrangements with no ownership share — which is what an associate position is.
Owner general dentists' median net income was $199,140 in the same survey — nonsolo owners $217,490, solo owners $179,360.
Three caveats before you quote any of these.
HPI's “net income” is a dentist's personal income after practice expenses and before personal income taxes — a different measure from the wages BLS counts.
The employed-dentist figure rests on 65 responses, inside a survey of 1,113 dentists drawn from a sample of 59,951 (a 1.9% response rate, figures not inflation-adjusted).
And the measures are different tools: BLS counts wages an employer pays; HPI counts income.
For scale, the median wage across all U.S. occupations was $50,980 in the same BLS release — see dental jobs ranked by pay for where this role sits in the profession.
These medians blend every pay model, and the model written into your own contract decides where you land inside them; how associates are paid explains the structures — production percentage, daily rate, base plus bonus — behind these numbers.
Hourly, monthly and yearly equivalents
The hourly median is one number BLS publishes directly: $82.19 an hour for general dentists in May 2025.
BLS builds annual figures on a 2,080-hour full-time year, so annual = hourly × 2,080.
The weekly and monthly figures below are straight division from the annual median — labeled as the arithmetic they are, since BLS doesn't publish them.
- Hourly: $82.19 (BLS-published median)
- Weekly: about $3,288 ($170,950 ÷ 52)
- Monthly: about $14,246 ($170,950 ÷ 12)
- Yearly: $170,950 median, $191,350 mean (BLS, May 2025)
Two things bend those equivalents in the real world.
First, what the wage includes: OEWS figures are straight-time gross pay — production bonuses, commissions and incentive pay are counted, but overtime, non-production and year-end bonuses, profit-sharing and benefit costs are not.
Second, hours: employed general dentists averaged 1,518 hours a year in the office for their primary practice in 2025, versus 1,726 for owners — about 29 hours a week if spread across 52 weeks — so a full-time-equivalent conversion can overstate or understate any individual associate's year.
Contract status changes the math too.
ADA HPI found independent contractors were 4.2% of all dentists in private practice between 2019 and 2023.
Under the federal FLSA regulations, a licensed dentist who is actually practicing is an exempt “practice of medicine” professional — and the FLSA salary-level and salary-basis requirements don't apply, so federal law does not require an associate to be paid a minimum salary to be exempt.
That's the federal rule; state wage laws can add their own requirements, so confirm with your state labor department.
No “standard” percentage or typical guarantee in the sources we checked
Pay by setting: private practice, DSO, hospital and public health
No survey in our sources splits employed-dentist pay by employer type, so there is no honest “DSO versus private practice” average to quote.
What exists: the ADA's private-practice figure for employed general dentists (the $165,520 median above), and BLS's industry table, which reports general dentists of all seniority inside each industry.
| Setting — general dentists, BLS OEWS, May 2025 | Median annual wage | Jobs |
|---|---|---|
| Outpatient care centers (NAICS 6214 — includes community health centers) | $194,220 | 3,640 |
| Employment services firms (NAICS 5613 — includes temp-help agencies) | $193,060 | 610 |
| Offices of dentists (NAICS 621200) | $169,900 | 111,880 |
| Colleges, universities and professional schools | $168,220 | 430 |
| General medical and surgical hospitals | $93,890 | 2,010 |
Read those rows with their labels.
Outpatient care centers is not “FQHC pay” — BLS does not isolate community health centers, and the industry includes other outpatient settings.
The hospital figure is the lowest of any published industry, and BLS doesn't explain why — don't assume it counts residents.
The employment-services row covers agency-employed W-2 dentists, not locum day rates.
On DSOs specifically, what's documented is reach, not pay: 16% of U.S. dentists were DSO-affiliated as of 2024, including 26.5% of dentists up to 10 years out of school, 14.4% of those 11–25 years out and 9.1% beyond 25 years (ADA HPI, which notes its method slightly undercounts).
Whether a DSO or an independent practice pays a given associate more is an offer-level question — the structural difference is a compensation-model question, and how associates are paid owns it.
Public-health settings add a piece of compensation straight-time wage figures don't capture: loan repayment.
The 2026 National Health Service Corps program offers dentists up to $50,000 for two years of full-time service, or $25,000 for two years half-time, at an NHSC-approved site — private-practice sites can't use half-time.
At an NHSC-approved site, that repayment sits on top of the wage.
Pay by experience and credential
Neither the ADA's survey nor the BLS tables on this page reports associate pay by years of experience — our research found no published first-year figure and no mid-career curve.
Any “salary by experience” table you find elsewhere is coming from outside these surveys, so check what it's actually measuring before you trust it.
What the sourced data does show is the employment-versus-ownership gap, not a seniority line.
ADA HPI's 2025 data put employed general dentists' median net income at $165,520 against $199,140 for owners.
BLS's Employment Projections put 12.4% of general dentists as self-employed in 2025 — the step that changes the income measure entirely.
Experience does shape one measurable thing: employer type.
The DSO-affiliation figures above fall from 26.5% among dentists up to 10 years out of school to 9.1% beyond 25 years — a picture of where early-career dentists work, not a pay scale.
First year specifically: the honest anchors are the employed-dentist median and the posted ranges in the last section below, both of which blend experience levels.
What actually sets a first-year income is the contract — guarantee length, conversion terms, production expectations — which is why new-grad associate pay treats the comp model, not the average, as the decision.
On credentials: nothing in these sources ties a certificate or CE hours to a higher associate number, so treat any claimed “credential premium” as unverified.
What licensure an associate needs is a licensing question, and the associate dentist career guide owns it.
Highest-paying states and metros
DentistryHires' own listing data can currently support exactly two states.
As of October 6, 2026, Texas employers hiring dentists posted an employer median of $245,000 a year (63 listings, 29 employers) and California $209,086 (58 listings, 22 employers).
Every other state fell under the reporting bar — fewer than 30 listings or 10 employers — so no other state figure is published.
Treat even those two with care.
Posted pay is the midpoint of the advertised range, and it excludes bonuses and production pay unless an employer folds them into the posted range — it is what employers advertise, not what dentists earn.
BLS publishes state medians for general dentists as a whole — Alaska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Tennessee and Oregon topped the May 2025 median ranking.
Rank the same data by mean instead and the order changes, which is why any “highest-paying state” list should say which measure it uses; BLS also published no general-dentist estimate at all for Alabama or Kansas.
The dentist salary guide carries the full state table for the occupation.
Metro-level associate pay is a gap on this page: the DentistryHires data here stops at the state level, we carry no BLS metro estimate for general dentists, and thin markets would be suppressed under the thresholds above — so check BLS's metro tables or local listings before quoting any metro number.
Associate dentist jobs on DentistryHires and what they pay
As of October 22, 2026, DentistryHires listed 422 open associate dentist positions and 928 dentist openings, among 11,475 dental openings nationwide.
Associate and general dentist listings pool together in the pay data, so the posted figures below describe dentist listings as a group.
Among employers hiring dentists, the posted employer median was $240,000 a year — built from 177 employers and 465 listings stating annual pay — with a listing median of $215,000 and a middle half of $197,500 to $300,000 (snapshot October 6, 2026).
Overall, 77.1% of dentist listings stated pay, across 1,358 open listings.
The method matters when you compare a listing to your own offer.
Posted pay is the midpoint of the advertised range; hourly and annual postings are never converted into each other; figures under 30 listings or 10 employers are suppressed, so a thin market shows no median; and the employer median is the headline so a large group posting hundreds of openings counts once.
Because bonuses and production pay are excluded unless folded into the posted range, a production-heavy offer can post lower than it would actually pay out.
Survey medians and posted medians answer different questions — what dentists earn versus what employers advertise — so use them together: the ADA and BLS figures for the level, the listings for today's market.
You can browse associate dentist jobs to see live ranges.
And if you're the one setting the number, associate pay models for owners covers how practices structure the offer.
This page is general career information, not financial, legal or tax advice. Compensation varies by employer, state and contract, and every survey and snapshot cited here is dated — verify current figures with the source and review any offer with a qualified professional.