Dental Assistant Salary in 2026: What Dental Assistants Earn
Dental assistant jobs pay a median of $48,070 a year, or $23.11 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, SOC 31-9091, May 2025). Half of the 387,790 dental assistants BLS counts earn more than that and half earn less. The middle half make $44,340 to $58,090, and the top 10% earn more than $62,250. Your state, your credentials and the practice you work for explain most of the spread.
25th percentile
$44,340
Median (50th)
$48,070
75th percentile
$58,090
90th percentile
$62,250
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (SOC 31-9091), May 2025 — the most recent national release.
Dental Assistant Compensation Structure
Compensation for dental assistantsvaries significantly by employment type. Here's how the most common structures break down:
National median
$23.11 an hour is the BLS hourly median (OEWS, May 2025).
$48,070 / yr
Typical range (10th–90th pct)
Most dental assistants fall within this band (BLS).
$37,130–$62,250
Certified / expanded-function
The DANB CDA plus state radiology and expanded-function permits (EFDA/RDAEF) tend to raise pay; BLS publishes no separate figure (directional).
Above the base median
Dental Assistant Salaries by Pay Level (10th to 90th Percentile)
BLS does not publish dental assistant pay by years of experience or by certification. Its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program is a salary survey of employers, who report what they pay each job, and it publishes the spread of annual wages across everyone in the occupation. Every figure below comes from the same May 2025 release (SOC 31-9091).
Where do new dental assistants start? Usually in the lower bands. Many states let you train on the job, so the 10th and 25th percentiles are a fair picture of early-career pay. No-experience dental assistant pay explains why BLS has no separate entry-level figure.
Assistants move toward the 75th and 90th percentiles as they add permits and chairside experience. BLS attaches no years of experience to any row, so read the table as a map of the market rather than a pay scale.
Highest-Paying States for Dental Assistants
See the full state-by-state table below.
How Much Do Dental Assistants Make an Hour?
The BLS hourly median for dental assistants is $23.11 (OEWS, SOC 31-9091, May 2025). The $48,070 annual median assumes full-time, year-round hours, so if a practice schedules you for fewer hours, the same hourly pay rate adds up to less over a year.
Pay also swings by city. Among metro areas with a reliable BLS estimate, San Jose ($74,600 a year) and Minneapolis ($72,370) pay dental assistants the most (BLS OEWS metro estimates, May 2025). Dental assistant hourly pay by metro converts every published metro to an hourly rate, and metro pages such as San Jose and Minneapolis compare every dental role in one area.
Does Certification Raise Dental Assistant Pay?
Often, but BLS publishes no separate wage for certified and non-certified dental assistants, so there is no official premium to quote. What holds up is the mechanism: credentials let you do more chairside and make you an easier hire, which tends to move you up the percentile table above.
The Dental Assisting National Board (DANB) offers the national CDA certification, built from three exams: Radiation Health and Safety (RHS), Infection Control (ICE) and General Chairside (GC). DANB also offers specialty certifications, including the Certified Orthodontic Assistant (COA), Certified Preventive Functions Dental Assistant (CPFDA) and Certified Restorative Functions Dental Assistant (CRFDA). Does CDA certification raise your pay? covers the national credential, and the EFDA pay premium covers the larger lift from state expanded-function permits.
Radiography is the credential many assistants add first. In most states an assistant can take x-rays once they hold a radiology permit or pass the DANB RHS exam, but the rules differ by state. See dental assistant requirements by state and verify with your state dental board.
Does the Type of Practice Change Dental Assistant Pay?
Dental assistants work in general dental offices, specialty practices such as orthodontics, oral surgery and pediatric dentistry, DSOs and multi-office groups, and public-health clinics. This guide has no verified BLS figure for dental assistant pay by type of practice, so there is no number showing that one setting pays more than another.
What the setting does change is the work, and with it the credentials worth having. An orthodontic assistant works through adjustment visits, and California requires a separate orthodontic assistant permit. An oral surgery assistant supports surgical cases. When you compare offers from a private practice and a DSO, compare the hours, benefits and training on offer, not just the rate.
Benefits, Bonuses and Overtime
The BLS salaries on this page are wages, not total compensation. OEWS counts base pay plus incentive pay such as production bonuses, and it leaves out overtime pay, nonproduction bonuses and the employer's cost of benefits (BLS OEWS technical notes).
That means two jobs with the same hourly rate can be worth different amounts. Overtime, paid time off and health coverage all sit on top of the wage, so ask for the full package in writing before you compare offers.
Job Outlook for Dental Assistants
BLS Employment Projections for 2025–2035 show dental assistant employment growing from about 388,600 to 417,400 jobs, an increase of 7.4%, compared with 3.5% for all occupations. BLS expects about 53,000 openings for dental assistants each year on average over the decade (BLS National Employment Matrix, SOC 31-9091).
A national projection is not a promise about any one town, and it says nothing about what a given practice will pay. The most direct read on your local market is the current list of dental assistant jobs.
How to Earn More as a Dental Assistant
Negotiate with numbers. Before you ask for a raise or answer a salary question, look up your state's median in the table below and compare it with the percentile rows above. A radiology permit, the CDA or expanded functions give you a concrete reason to ask for pay toward the 75th percentile rather than the median.
Grow the role. Some assistants take on lead assistant or trainer duties inside their practice. Others move to the business side as a treatment coordinator or office manager, teach as a dental assisting instructor, or go back to school to become a dental hygienist, which takes an accredited hygiene program and a state license. Dental hygienist vs. dental assistant compares the two careers.
Dental Assistant Pay vs. Other Dental Jobs
Do dental assistants make good money? Within dentistry, the dental assistant median sits close to a dental lab technician's and a dental receptionist's, below an office supervisor's, and at about half of a dental hygienist's. Training time explains most of that gap: many assistants start through on-the-job training, while hygienists need an accredited program and a state license.
All five figures are May 2025 BLS medians. The office manager and front desk rows come from the BLS industry table for offices of dentists, because BLS has no occupation by those names; the other three are all-industry figures for the occupation.
What Affects Dental Assistant Salary?
Location. State medians run from $37,760 in Utah to $65,270 in Minnesota, with the District of Columbia ($60,580), Maine ($60,070) and New Hampshire ($59,530) next (BLS OEWS, SOC 31-9091, May 2025). In the largest states, the median is $50,110 in California, $48,110 in New York, $47,620 in Florida and $45,430 in Texas. BLS publishes no dental assistant estimate for Kansas. Weigh any state figure against local living costs.
Credentials and scope. The DANB CDA, a state radiology permit and expanded-function permits (EFDA, RDAEF and similar titles) let you do more chairside and tend to move pay toward the upper end of the range, though BLS publishes no separate figure for them. Because those permits are set state by state, so is much of the earning ceiling.
Experience and practice. New assistants usually start in the lower percentiles and move up as they build skills. General offices, specialty practices and DSOs structure pay differently, and there is no verified data showing that one type of practice pays dental assistants more.
Salary figures are BLS estimates for general information only; actual pay varies by employer, location, experience and the permits you hold. Certification, radiography and scope-of-practice rules vary by state, so verify them with your state dental board. This is general information, not legal or medical advice.
Dental Assistant Salary by State
BLS publishes a dental assistant wage estimate for every state except Kansas. A missing state means no published estimate, not low pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a dental assistant make an hour?
The BLS hourly median for dental assistants is $23.11 (OEWS, SOC 31-9091, May 2025), which matches the $48,070 annual median at full-time hours.
Hourly pay runs well above that in metros such as San Jose and Minneapolis and below it in much of the South.
How many hours a practice schedules you decides what the rate adds up to over a year.
Which state pays dental assistants the most?
Minnesota, with a median of $65,270 a year, followed by the District of Columbia at $60,580 and Maine at $60,070 (BLS OEWS state estimates, SOC 31-9091, May 2025).
Utah has the lowest published median at $37,760.
BLS publishes no dental assistant estimate for Kansas, so it is missing from the state table.
Weigh any state figure against local rent and prices.
Which cities pay dental assistants the most?
Among metro areas with a reliable BLS estimate, San Jose, California pays dental assistants the most at a $74,600 median, followed by Minneapolis at $72,370, San Francisco at $64,390 and Seattle at $62,040 (BLS OEWS metro estimates, May 2025).
All four sit well above the $48,070 national median.
Metros with a small or imprecise BLS sample are left out of this ranking.
Do certified dental assistants make more money?
Often, but there is no official figure.
BLS does not split dental assistant wages by certification, so any fixed certified premium you see quoted is not from BLS data.
The DANB CDA and state permits for radiography or expanded functions tend to move assistants above the entry-level range, because they let you do more chairside and make you an easier hire.
What benefits do dental assistants get?
It depends on the employer.
Full-time staff positions can include health insurance, paid time off, a retirement plan such as a 401(k), and help paying for continuing education or certification exams.
Part-time and temporary roles vary more.
None of this is counted in the BLS wage figures on this page, so compare the whole package when you weigh two offers.