Dentist Salary in 2026: What Dentists Earn
The median dentist salary in the U.S. is $170,950 a year, or about $82 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, SOC 29-1021, general dentists, May 2025). The middle half of dentists make $125,710 to $224,040, and the top 10% earn more than $319,630. How much a dentist makes depends mostly on how they are paid (as an associate, an employee or an owner), where they practice and whether they specialize.
25th percentile
$125,710
Median (50th)
$170,950
75th percentile
$224,040
90th percentile
$319,630
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (SOC 29-1021, Dentists, General), May 2025 — the most recent national release.
Dentist Compensation Structure
Compensation for dentistsvaries significantly by employment type. Here's how the most common structures break down:
National median
About $82 an hour (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025).
$170,950 / yr
Typical range (10th–90th pct)
General-dentist wages span an unusually wide band (BLS).
$86,250–$319,630
Owner vs. associate
Practice owners and partners take practice profit on top of clinical pay; associates are usually paid a percentage of production or a daily rate (directional).
Owners typically higher
How Much Do Dentists Make? Salaries by Percentile
BLS does not publish dentist salaries by years of experience, so there is no official figure for a starting, mid-career or senior dentist. What it publishes is the spread of wages across all employed general dentists, which is the most reliable way to see the low end, the middle and the top of the market. Every figure below is an annual wage from the same May 2025 release (SOC 29-1021).
What is the starting salary of a dentist? There is no official figure for new graduates. The 10th and 25th percentiles show where the lower end of the dentist wage distribution sits, not what a new DDS or DMD is paid.
Most new dentists start as associates, so first-year income depends mainly on the pay model in the contract and how quickly production builds. New-grad associate pay walks through that, including how student debt should shape the offer you choose.
Few occupations spread as widely as this one. Pay model, location and specialty explain most of the gap, and each is covered below.
Highest-Paying States for Dentists
Ranked among states whose BLS estimate rests on a usable sample; 3 states with small or imprecise samples are left out of the ranking and shown in the full table below.
Which Cities Pay Dentists the Most?
Among metro areas with a reliable BLS estimate, North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, Florida has the highest median dentist salary at $241,850 a year. Memphis follows at $238,040 and Evansville, Indiana at $225,620 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025). At the other end, Lake Charles, Louisiana sits at $114,470.
The biggest cities don't reliably pay the most. Los Angeles ($139,990) and Chicago ($156,100) both fall below the $170,950 national median, while smaller markets such as Evansville and Hanford, California ($222,430) rank near the top.
The metro data behind these pages covers metropolitan areas only, so there is no like-for-like figure for rural practices. If you practice outside a metro, your state's median below is the closest benchmark.
Dentist salary by metro ranks every metro with a reliable estimate and explains the gaps in BLS coverage. For one area in detail, metro pages such as Memphis and North Port compare dentist pay with every other dental role there.
How Associate Dentists Are Paid
Most dentists start their careers as associate dentists: licensed dentists employed by a practice or a dental support organization (DSO) without an ownership stake. Associates are rarely paid a flat salary.
Percentage of production or collections. The most common model pays the associate a share of the fees for the dentistry they perform. On a production contract the fee counts when the work is done; on a collections contract it counts only once the patient or insurer pays.
Daily rate. A set amount for each day worked, often structured as the greater of the daily rate or the associate's production percentage. Base plus bonus, common at DSOs, pays a base salary with a bonus on production above a threshold.
A single procedure shows how percentage pay works. When an associate places a crown or completes a root canal, that procedure's fee counts toward their production, and their pay is their percentage of it. The same full schedule can pay two associates differently, depending on the practice's fees, its mix of insurance plans and whether the contract pays on production or collections.
How associate dentists are paid compares the models and the contract terms that decide what each is worth, and associate dentist jobs lists current openings.
Practice Owners: Production, Collections and Overhead
Practice owners are paid differently again. An owner's income starts with the practice's production (the value of all the dentistry done) and its collections (the part patients and insurers actually pay). Out of collections come the overhead costs of running the practice: staff wages, rent, supplies, lab fees, equipment and any practice loan. What remains is the owner's profit, earned on top of their own clinical work.
That profit is the part BLS wage data doesn't fully capture. The OEWS survey collects the wages employers pay their employees and does not cover self-employed workers, and business profit isn't a wage. So the figures on this page are a benchmark for associates and employed dentists, and a floor rather than the whole picture for owners.
Ownership also carries the costs and risks of running a business. Owning vs. associating weighs the two paths, partnership buy-ins cover the step between them, and DSO vs. private practice compares the two most common places associates work.
Production, Case Acceptance and Other Pay Factors
Production speed and case acceptance. On production-based pay, income rises with the dentistry you complete. Two things drive that: how efficiently you work through a full schedule, and how many patients accept the treatment you recommend (case acceptance). Both tend to build with experience and a steady flow of patients.
Specialty and setting. A specialty residency moves you into a different pay band, as the comparison below shows. Setting often comes up early: the ADA Health Policy Institute found 16.1% of dentists were affiliated with a DSO in 2024, and 26.5% of those up to 10 years out of dental school.
Hours and loan repayment. Production and daily-rate pay both follow the days you work, so a shorter clinical week means less annual pay at the same rate. Dentists repaying student loans can also look at federal programs: in its 2026 cycle, NHSC loan repayment paid general and pediatric dentists up to $50,000 for two years of full-time service at an approved site in a dental shortage area.
Dentist Salary vs. Specialists and Other Dental Roles
All five medians come from the same BLS OEWS release (May 2025). Oral surgeons and orthodontists earn the most, after dental school plus a specialty residency. Which dental specialty pays the most ranks every specialty group BLS tracks and explains why the ranges overlap more than the medians suggest.
BLS publishes no separate figure for pediatric dentists or endodontists, so their pages draw on the ADA Health Policy Institute's survey of dentists in private practice instead: see pediatric dentist salary and endodontist salary.
What Affects Dentist Salary?
Pay model. Whether you work as an associate, an employed dentist or an owner shapes pay more than anything else, as the sections above explain.
Location. Among the states with a published BLS estimate, dentist medians run from $123,830 in Wyoming to $230,990 in Alaska, with North Dakota ($220,660) and Minnesota ($219,200) close behind (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025). Each state page breaks down that state's percentiles and metros.
For current openings, browse dentist jobs. Practices setting pay for an opening can find the employer side in our guide to hiring a dentist.
Salary figures are BLS estimates for general information only; actual pay varies by employer, location, pay model, specialty and experience. Pay models and contract terms are described in general terms. This is general information, not legal or medical advice; have an attorney review any employment contract before you sign.
Dentist Salary by State
BLS publishes a general-dentist wage estimate for 47 of the 51 jurisdictions — Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia and Kansas have none. A missing state means no published estimate, not low pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a dentist make an hour?
About $82 an hour at the median, the hourly equivalent of the $170,950 annual median BLS reports for general dentists (OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025).
Few dentists are actually paid by the hour, though.
Associates are usually paid a percentage of production or collections, or a daily rate, so their effective hourly pay depends on how much dentistry they complete in a day rather than a set wage.
What is the starting salary of a dentist right after dental school?
BLS publishes no separate wage for new graduates.
The closest official reference is the lower end of the general-dentist distribution: the 10th percentile is $86,250 a year and the 25th is $125,710 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025).
Those are not new-grad salaries.
Most new dentists start as associates, so first-year pay depends mainly on the contract's pay model and how quickly production builds.
Which state pays dentists the most?
Alaska has the highest published median for general dentists at $230,990 a year, followed by North Dakota at $220,660 and Minnesota at $219,200 (BLS OEWS state estimates, May 2025).
Wyoming has the lowest published median at $123,830.
BLS publishes no general-dentist estimate for Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia or Kansas, so treat those as missing data, not low pay.
How much does an associate dentist make?
BLS doesn't publish associate dentists as a separate group.
Associates on a practice's payroll are counted within the general-dentist figures on this page, where the median is $170,950 a year (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1021, May 2025).
What an individual associate earns depends on the pay model, whether a percentage of production or collections, a daily rate, or a base plus bonus, and on the fine print of that model.
Do BLS dentist salary figures include practice owners' profit?
Not fully.
The OEWS survey collects the wages employers pay their employees, including production bonuses, and does not cover self-employed workers.
It also leaves out overtime, nonproduction bonuses and the employer's cost of benefits (BLS OEWS technical notes).
A practice owner's profit is business income rather than a wage, so read these figures as a benchmark for associates and employed dentists and a floor for owners.