Oral and maxillofacial surgery is the highest-paying job in dentistry, with a median wage of $352,220 — followed by prosthodontists ($311,180) and orthodontists ($289,140), according to BLS OEWS data for May 2025.
General dentists earn a median of $170,950.
Among clinical roles that don't require a dental degree, dental hygienists lead the published wage data at $98,100 — nearly double the $50,980 median across all U.S. occupations.
This guide ranks every dental role, then explains what moves pay inside each one.
Every dental role ranked by median pay (BLS + listing data)
Dentistry's pay ladder has four tiers: specialist dentists at the top, general dentists and associates, clinical staff led by hygienists, and the office and business roles that keep a practice running.
The table below ranks the roles the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks as their own occupations, using national medians from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program for May 2025.
| Rank | Role | Median pay | Jobs counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oral and maxillofacial surgeons | $352,220 | 4,910 |
| 2 | Prosthodontists | $311,180 | 870 |
| 3 | Orthodontists | $289,140 | 6,210 |
| 4 | Dentists, all other specialists | $224,990 | 5,230 |
| 5 | Dentists, all types | $176,110 | 141,610 |
| 6 | General dentists | $170,950 | 124,390 |
| 7 | Dental hygienists | $98,100 | 222,740 |
| 8 | Dental laboratory technicians | $49,610 | 34,410 |
| 9 | Dental assistants | $48,070 | 387,790 |
| — | All U.S. occupations (benchmark) | $50,980 | — |
The specialist rows carry two caveats.
Prosthodontics is a very small field in the wage data, so its median rests on a small sample — 870 wage-and-salary jobs nationally.
And row 4 is a catch-all series that pools every dentist-specialist BLS doesn't break out; it is not one specialty's salary.
BLS also has no occupation line for several dental jobs — EFDAs, treatment coordinators and dental office managers among them.
The sections below fill those gaps.
Medians describe the middle of the market — not an offer
Doctor-level roles: specialists, general dentists and associates
BLS keeps separate wage series for just four specialist occupations: oral and maxillofacial surgery ($352,220), prosthodontics ($311,180), orthodontics ($289,140), and a catch-all for everyone else ($224,990).
The National Commission on Recognition of Dental Specialties and Certifying Boards recognizes 12 dental specialties, so periodontists, endodontists, pediatric dentists, dental anesthesiologists and the rest are pooled inside that catch-all, whose 90th percentile reaches $402,700.
Treat it as a pooled benchmark, not a periodontist or pediatric-dentist salary.
Inside offices of dentists, the specialist medians track the national ones closely: $360,820 for oral and maxillofacial surgeons, $311,220 for prosthodontists, $287,960 for orthodontists, and $224,990 for the pooled other specialists.
For a specialty-by-specialty ranking, our guide to which dental specialty pays the most compares them side by side.
A second measure matters at the doctor level: net income, which includes practice owners.
The ADA Health Policy Institute puts median net income for specialists in private practice at $258,880 for 2025 — $259,550 for owner specialists.
Net income is personal income after practice expenses and before taxes, so it is not comparable to a wage.
Pediatric dentistry was the one specialty HPI could report separately for 2025, at $245,300; samples for the other specialties were too small to publish.
DentistryHires postings showed a $325,000 employer-median advertised salary for pediatric dentists in the October 6, 2026 snapshot — directional at best, from 11 employers.
General dentists earn a median of $170,950, with the middle half between $125,710 and $224,040 and the top decile above $319,630.
Restricted to offices of dentists, the median is $169,900.
The dentist salary guide breaks the state and metro detail out further.
Associate versus owner is another fork in dentist pay, and BLS only sees the employed side.
HPI's 2025 survey puts employed general dentists at $165,520 in median net income — a middle half of $129,280 to $191,470, from 65 responses — against $199,140 for owner dentists.
Ownership splits further: nonsolo owners report $217,490 and solo owners $179,360.
How those offers are structured is covered in the associate dentist compensation guide, and the ownership path in the dental practice owner career guide.
Clinical staff: hygienists, EFDAs, RDAs/CDA and dental assistants
Dental hygienists are the highest-paid clinical role without a dental degree in the published wage data, with a median of $98,100 — $47.16 an hour.
The middle half earns $83,570 to $108,480, and the top decile reaches $126,050.
In offices of dentists the median is $98,280.
DentistryHires postings in the October 6, 2026 snapshot show an employer-median advertised wage of $52.50 an hour, with a listing median of $51.50 and a middle half of $46.00 to $57.50 across 2,044 listings from 1,124 employers; 85.1% of those listings stated pay.
The dental hygienist salary guide carries the state-level detail.
EFDAs — expanded-function dental assistants — have no BLS occupation at all.
The one national figure comes from the ADA Health Policy Institute: EFDAs averaged $29.90 an hour in 2025, against $25.30 for dental assistants overall, and the EFDA figure runs higher in specialty practices ($32.90) than general practices ($29.40).
BLS publishes a single series (31-9091) for all dental assistants whatever their credential — RDA and CDA don't change the line.
That series shows a median of $48,070, or $23.11 an hour, with a bottom decile of $37,130 and a top decile of $62,250.
In offices of dentists the median is $48,000.
HPI's survey averaged $25.30 an hour — $25.50 in specialty practices, $25.20 in general practices.
DentistryHires postings in the same snapshot show an employer-median advertised wage of $23.50 an hour across 2,651 listings from 1,305 employers, with a middle half of $21.00 to $26.00; among postings that stated an annual salary, the employer median was $50,000 (19 employers — a small sample).
Dental laboratory technicians land just above assistants, at a median of $49,610 — $23.85 an hour — across 34,410 jobs, and $51,380 inside offices of dentists.
Office and business roles
No dental-titled business role — dental office manager, treatment coordinator, billing coordinator — has its own BLS occupation, so the honest comparison is the industry table for offices of dentists, using the closest series for each job:
| Closest BLS series (in offices of dentists) | Median pay | Jobs counted |
|---|---|---|
| General and operations managers | $92,540 | 5,580 |
| Medical and health services managers | $78,050 | 9,240 |
| First-line supervisors of office and administrative support workers | $63,910 | 32,840 |
| Billing and posting clerks | $51,910 | 15,240 |
| Medical secretaries and administrative assistants | $47,990 | — |
| Receptionists and information clerks | $46,500 | — |
| Insurance claims and policy processing clerks | $43,680 | — |
| All occupations in offices of dentists | $58,300 | 1,054,930 |
Two reading notes.
The medical and health services manager series looks far better paid across all industries — a $123,860 median — than inside a dental practice, where it is $78,050; when you size a practice-administrator salary, the dental-office figure is the relevant one, and it spans $54,200 at the 10th percentile to $143,010 at the 90th.
And first-line supervisor of office and administrative support workers is the closest federal series for a dental office manager — the practice-administrator role is the medical and health services manager line above it.
DentistryHires posted pay fills the gaps the federal series can't: in the October 6, 2026 snapshot, office manager postings showed an employer-median advertised wage of $27.50 an hour, treatment coordinator $24.50, billing coordinator $25.00 and dental front desk $22.00.
Among office manager postings that stated an annual salary, the employer median was $65,486 (16 employers — a small sample).
Treatment coordinator has no BLS occupation, so the posted median from live listings is the only national figure this page can offer for the role.
Highest-paying dental jobs without a dental degree
These are the dental careers with the strongest pay figures in this guide that don't require a DDS or DMD — the order isn't a strict ranking, because some figures are annual and some hourly.
Several of the roles still require licensure or formal training, which the linked role guides cover:
- Dental sales representative — the closest BLS category, technical and scientific product sales, shows a $104,920 median across all industries, not dental-only.
- Dental hygienist — $98,100 median, with a top decile above $126,050; the highest-paid clinical role without a dental degree in the published wage data.
- General and operations manager in a dental practice — $92,540 median in offices of dentists.
- Practice administrator (medical and health services manager) — $78,050 median in offices of dentists, reaching $143,010 at the 90th percentile.
- EFDA — averaged $29.90 an hour in 2025.
- Dental laboratory technician — $49,610 median, just below the $50,980 all-occupation benchmark.
- Dental assistant — $48,070 median, with state medians reaching $65,270 in Minnesota.
Why the EFDA row is an hourly figure
What moves pay inside any role (setting, state, credential, production)
Setting.
In the ADA survey's split by practice type, specialty practices average more than general practices for the same job: dental assistants at $25.50 an hour in specialty practices against $25.20 in general practices, and EFDAs at $32.90 against $29.40.
State.
Geography moves all three roles the state tables cover.
The five highest state medians for general dentists are Alaska ($230,990), North Dakota ($220,660), Minnesota ($219,200), Tennessee ($215,290) and Oregon ($211,690) — ranked by median, and the ordering changes if you rank by mean instead.
For hygienists the leaders are Washington, D.C. ($137,220), Alaska ($132,690), Washington ($131,160), California ($124,930) and Oregon ($122,080).
For dental assistants: Minnesota ($65,270), Washington, D.C. ($60,580), Maine ($60,070), New Hampshire ($59,530) and Oregon ($59,490).
DentistryHires' own postings agree on Minnesota for assistants — the highest state employer-median advertised wage at $31.50 an hour in the October 6, 2026 snapshot.
For city-level rather than state-level pay, DentistryHires collects dental wages by metro.
Credentials.
The EFDA-versus-assistant averages above ($29.90 against $25.30) are the closest thing to a credential comparison in these sources.
Beyond that, our research found no verified figure for a typical EFDA premium over a general-duty assistant, or for what a hygienist's local anesthesia or nitrous oxide permit adds to pay — ask practices directly and compare offers rather than assuming a premium.
Production and ownership.
Production pay is only partly visible in these figures: BLS includes production bonuses and commissions in straight-time pay but excludes overtime, year-end bonuses and profit sharing, and DentistryHires posted pay excludes bonuses unless the employer folds them into the posted range.
Ownership moves the number too — owner general dentists report $199,140 in median net income against $165,520 for employed general dentists.
If you hire for a practice, our employer guide covers how practices set pay scales across a team.
Find the best-paid dental jobs on DentistryHires
Every figure on this page is retrospective.
The live board is where pay meets openings: as of October 22, 2026, DentistryHires listed 11,475 open dental jobs — 4,019 dental assistant, 3,048 dental hygienist, 1,521 dental front desk, 928 dentist, 548 office manager, 539 treatment coordinator, 422 associate dentist and 138 endodontist positions.
When you compare postings, use each listing's stated range rather than a national median.
DentistryHires computes posted-pay medians as the midpoint of the advertised range, keeps hourly and annual figures separate with no conversion between them, and suppresses any role whose sample falls below 30 listings or 10 employers.