BLS publishes no orthodontic-assistant pay series: it counts orthodontic assistants inside its dental assistant data (SOC 31-9091), which paid a median of $23.11 an hour — $48,070 a year — in May 2025, with the middle half earning $21.32 to $27.93.
Dental practices hiring dental assistants on DentistryHires posted a median of $23.50 an hour in October 2026.
We found no source that publishes an orthodontic-specific premium.
Here is the full picture, and where the data stops.
Typical pay range for orthodontic assistants
Start with the honest framing: BLS publishes no separate wage series for orthodontic assistants.
Its OEWS data count them inside SOC 31-9091, Dental Assistants, along with registered assistants, expanded-function (EFDA) assistants, and oral surgery, pediatric, endodontic, hygiene and lead assistants.
The dental assistant distribution is therefore the closest federal anchor: in May 2025 the national median was $23.11 an hour, or $48,070 a year, and the middle half earned between $21.32 and $27.93 an hour ($44,340 to $58,090 a year).
First-party listings point the same direction.
Dental practices hiring dental assistants on DentistryHires posted a median of $23.50 an hour across 1,305 employers and 2,651 listings that stated hourly pay (October 6, 2026), with the middle half of listings offering $21.00 to $26.00.
For what the work itself involves — and where a state permit attaches to the title — see the orthodontic assistant role guide; this page stays on pay.
Orthodontic assistant vs. general dental assistant pay
No source we checked measures whether ortho pays more than general practice.
BLS's one-series structure means the federal data cannot split the specialties, and DentistryHires does not split posted dental assistant pay by specialty in its published listing data either.
Any claim that orthodontic assistants earn a fixed percentage more is an estimate, not a measurement.
What differs is the work: an orthodontic assistant's chair time centers on brackets, bands and archwires rather than the mixed flow of general chairside dentistry.
In California, the duties a permitted orthodontic assistant may perform under direct supervision include preparing teeth and curing brackets once the dentist approves their position, sizing, fitting and securing orthodontic bands, placing and ligating archwires, and removing bands, brackets and attachments and excess cement with an ultrasonic scaler — a skill set a practice can price, even if no national table does.
Whether it's priced shows up in the offer: compare the hourly rate, the bonus structure and the schedule side by side.
If you're the one setting the rate, our guide to hiring for ortho practices covers the employer side.
Is there a pay premium for Certified Orthodontic Assistants (COA)?
DANB's Certified Orthodontic Assistant (COA) is the credential aimed at this role.
It is built from two component exams: Infection Control (ICE) and Orthodontic Assisting (OA).
We found no published dollar premium for the credential itself.
BLS publishes no series that prices orthodontic assistants, and the one industry survey checked — DANB's 2026 report — compares CDA certification, lead status and restorative functions, not specialty.
The closest sourced number is DANB's own 2026 salary survey, in which DANB Certified Dental Assistants (CDA holders) reported a median of $28 an hour versus $24 for non-certified dental assistants, a $4 (17%) difference.
That comparison covers DANB's CDA credential — it is not COA-specific — and it is self-reported: the survey ran in April 2026 with a 3% response rate, and its figures are median hourly wages excluding benefits.
Treat any "COA premium" number you see elsewhere as unsourced.
What isn't published about COA pay
Pay by experience
We found no federal or industry source that splits dental assistant pay by years of experience, orthodontic assistants included.
We found no published "entry-level vs. experienced" ortho salary table either; treat any single one you come across as modeled rather than measured.
The percentile spread in the section above is the closest anchor: where an individual lands reflects the local market, the practice and negotiation — not tenure alone.
The best-sourced window into how pay actually moves is DANB's 2026 survey: 46% of dental assistants said they received a raise in the past 12 months, and 64% of those raises were between 1% and 3%.
That is the whole occupation, self-reported — it says nearly half of assistants got a raise and most raises were 1–3%, not that ortho practices pay any particular step.
Bonuses in ortho offices
We found no published data on how orthodontic practices structure bonuses, or what share of them pay one — so treat any "typical ortho bonus" figure as invented.
What you can do is read a bonus offer for what it actually is.
A bonus is only as good as its measurement.
If an offer ties a bonus to case starts, aligner sales or practice production, ask exactly how the number is counted, when it is paid, and whether it sits on top of your base rate or effectively advances against it.
A bonus tied to starts depends on the practice's patient flow as much as your own work, so a lower base with a large bonus deserves more scrutiny than the reverse.
That is not a claim that ortho offices pay bonuses — it is how to price one if it lands in front of you.
National orthodontic assistant pay: median and percentiles
This is the fullest federal view available, and it covers dental assistants as a whole.
In May 2025, BLS OEWS counted 387,790 dental assistant jobs nationally with a mean wage of $24.13 an hour ($50,200 a year).
The percentile spread ran from under $17.85 an hour at the 10th percentile — the lowest-paid 10% earned under $37,130 a year — to over $29.93 an hour at the 90th, or over $62,250.
| Percentile | Hourly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $17.85 | $37,130 |
| 25th | $21.32 | $44,340 |
| Median (50th) | $23.11 | $48,070 |
| 75th | $27.93 | $58,090 |
| 90th | $29.93 | $62,250 |
The mean sits above the median because the top of the distribution pulls it up.
Until a source starts splitting the orthodontic specialty out, this distribution is the reference point — it is not an orthodontic-specific figure, and we found no orthodontic-specific one.
Hourly, monthly and yearly equivalents
The same BLS percentiles, converted.
The monthly column below is the annual figure divided by 12 — the only arithmetic on this page; every other number is as the source publishes it.
| Hourly | Yearly | Monthly (yearly ÷ 12) |
|---|---|---|
| $17.85 | $37,130 | $3,094.17 |
| $21.32 | $44,340 | $3,695.00 |
| $23.11 (median) | $48,070 | $4,005.83 |
| $27.93 | $58,090 | $4,840.83 |
| $29.93 | $62,250 | $5,187.50 |
DentistryHires' posted hourly figures are deliberately not converted the same way.
Posted pay is what employers advertise, not what any individual earns across a year — part-time schedules and time off make a straight hourly-to-annual conversion misleading.
Pay by setting: private practice, hospitals, clinics and government
BLS's setting data covers dental assistants as a whole, not orthodontic assistants separately.
The offices-of-dentists row is the closest federal anchor for a specialty-practice assistant's setting.
There, the May 2025 median was $23.08 an hour ($48,000 a year) across 354,900 jobs.
Offices of dentists dominate the occupation: 91% of dental assistant jobs were there in 2025, with 2% in offices of physicians and 2% in government (excluding state and local education and hospitals).
The smaller settings pay differently.
Hospital dental assistants — 2,020 jobs — had a median of $26.25 an hour ($54,610 a year).
In outpatient care centers — the category that includes community clinics, though BLS does not isolate community health centers in this table — the median was $23.60 an hour ($49,090 a year) across 8,560 jobs, so read it as a category-level figure rather than a community-clinic wage.
Government (excluding state and local education and hospitals) paid a $55,270 median versus $48,000 in offices of dentists.
We found no published DSO-versus-private-practice pay split for assistants, so evaluate a DSO offer on its own terms rather than against a benchmark that doesn't exist.
Pay by experience and credential: what you can document
Experience and credentials are the two things you can put paper behind, and they are what a hiring orthodontist can actually verify.
The credential aimed at this role is DANB's COA: two of its eligibility pathways require at least 3,500 hours of approved work experience plus either current or former DANB CDA certification (Pathway I) or a high school diploma (Pathway II), plus current hands-on CPR, BLS or ACLS.
DANB also lists routes covering a CODA-program orthodontic assisting course with a current CDA, former COA status, or a dental degree — DANB's site has the full, current eligibility list.
States layer their own credentials on top.
California issues an orthodontic assistant permit to applicants who complete a 2-hour Dental Practice Act course, an 8-hour infection control course, a board-approved ultrasonic scaling course, current BLS, a board-approved orthodontic assistant course, fingerprints, and a board written exam — the orthodontic assistant role guide covers what that permit authorizes once issued.
None of this comes with a published pay figure we could find: no source we checked prices a permit or certification in dollars, so treat the credential as a verifiable fact about you in negotiation, not a number anyone has measured.
Credential and permit rules are state-specific
Highest-paying states and metros
Neither source splits orthodontic assistants out by geography: BLS's wage data carries the one blended dental assistant occupation at every level, and DentistryHires' posted pay is not split by specialty.
What exists is state-level data for dental assistants as a whole — BLS's state and metro medians are on our state-by-state DA salary pages — plus DentistryHires' own posted-pay figures.
On posted pay, the highest employer medians for dental assistants on DentistryHires (October 6, 2026, among states with at least 30 listings and 10 employers) were Minnesota at $31.50 an hour across 52 listings, Massachusetts and Oregon at $27.50, and California, Washington and New Jersey at $26.00 each; Texas posted $20.00 across 300 listings.
Those are advertised rates for all dental assistants, not an ortho figure — we found no measurement of an orthodontic premium or discount by state.
Two final reference points.
The person you chair for is paid on a different scale entirely — see orthodontist salary for that.
And this page sits inside the wider dental assistant career guide, which covers the rest of the role family.