Becoming an endodontist means completing an endodontics residency after dental school, and the only published length is a floor, not a typical duration: the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) requires a minimum of 24 months of full-time study.
Endodontics is also the newest of the 12 recognized dental specialties, formally recognized in 2021.
Here's what the residency actually requires, what board certification adds, and what isn't published about getting in.
How long is an endodontics residency?
An endodontics residency has one accreditation floor, not a fixed length.
The Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) requires that "an advanced dental education program in endodontics must encompass a minimum duration of 24 months of full-time study" (Standard 4-1).
That's a minimum a program can't go below — actual program lengths vary by school and aren't published in a way that supports saying programs "typically" run any longer than that.
The residency starts after dental school and licensure, the same entry point as every dental specialty.
For the broader framework — how CODA accreditation, the match, and board certification work across all 12 specialties — see dental residency & board certification.
This page goes deep on what's specific to endodontics.
What the residency covers
The clinical content lines up with what separates an endodontist from a general dentist: complex root canal therapy, retreatment of canals that failed the first time, diagnosis of hard-to-locate tooth pain, treatment of cracked teeth and dental trauma, and endodontic microsurgery such as an apicoectomy.
The surgical operating microscope and cone-beam CT imaging run through all of it, not as optional add-ons.
CODA's standards set the minimum duration and the required scope of training; they don't publish a day-by-day curriculum, a required case count, or how residents are evaluated program to program.
For the whole path from dental school through residency, see the sibling step-by-step guide to becoming an endodontist.
Board certification: the American Board of Endodontics
After residency, most endodontists pursue certification from the American Board of Endodontics (ABE) — one of 11 certifying boards recognized by the National Commission on Recognition of Dental Specialties and Certifying Boards (NCRDSCB), an agency of the ADA.
Certification is voluntary.
It isn't required to hold a dental license or to practice as an endodontist; it's a credential general dentists weigh when deciding who to refer a difficult case to.
What isn't published: how many candidates sit for ABE certification each year, or what share pass.
Treat certification as a recognized mark of expertise, not a number you can benchmark against.
See becoming a board-certified endodontist for the three-stage exam process itself.
Endodontics: the newest recognized dental specialty
The NCRDSCB currently recognizes 12 dental specialties. Endodontics was the most recently recognized of them, in 2021 — after oral and maxillofacial surgery, orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics, and pediatric dentistry, all recognized in 2018.
The National Commission itself was established by the ADA House of Delegates in 2017, when nine specialties existed; endodontics was among those added afterward.
That timing is about governance, not about how long endodontic practice has existed — dentists have performed advanced root canal therapy for decades.
It's a detail about when the specialty earned its current formal recognition, not about the clinical work itself.
See the 12 dental specialties explained for where endodontics sits among the rest.
What isn't published about getting into a program
Several questions job seekers and dental students ask about endodontics residency don't have a sourceable public answer.
CODA's standards set the training minimums; they don't publish anything about how competitive a program is to enter or what it costs to attend.
What CODA and the NCRDSCB don't publish
Where residency fits, and what it doesn't answer about pay
The residency is the credential gap between a general dentist and an endodontist — see endodontist vs. general dentist for exactly which cases that training changes and how referrals run.
It isn't a separate license, and finishing residency doesn't require board certification to start practicing.
Pay doesn't move cleanly with the credential either: there's no endodontics-specific federal wage figure.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups the role under "Dentists, all other specialists" (SOC 29-1029), median $224,990 a year (OEWS, May 2025) — a figure that combines several specialties, not endodontics alone.
See what an endodontist does for that context in full.
This article is general career information, not clinical, legal, or financial advice. Program requirements and pay figures are directional and should be verified against current CODA, NCRDSCB, and BLS sources.