Orthodontics residency admission has grown more competitive every year for at least five years running: 722 people applied for one of 362 positions in the 2026 Match, and 341 matched, per the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program's Results of the Matching Program for 2026–2027 Positions.
Applicant counts have risen every year since 2022 while the number of available positions has barely moved — that widening gap, not a single acceptance rate, is the real measure of how hard this specialty is to enter.
The 2026 Match, by the numbers
The Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program, run by National Matching Services, publishes participation and outcome counts each year for every specialty program type in the dental match.
Its Results of the Matching Program for 2026–2027 Positions reports 722 applicants participating in the orthodontics (ORTHO) match, competing for 362 available residency positions.
341 of those applicants matched into an orthodontics residency spot.
That left 21 of the 362 positions unfilled.
Five years of the same trend — and it's the real story
A single year's numbers don't tell you whether orthodontics is getting harder to enter or just happened to be competitive in 2026.
The Match's own five-year figures do.
Applicants rose from 593 in 2022 to 722 in 2026 — every year, without a dip — while positions moved from only 345 to 362 over the same five years, per the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program.
That's roughly 129 more people applying against just 17 more seats to apply for.
The gap between how many people want in and how many spots exist has been widening for half a decade, and that trend — not any single year's numbers — is what makes orthodontics one of the more sought-after residencies to match into.
This article covers admission only; for what the residency itself requires once you're in, see the 3,700-hour requirement.
Why you won't see an acceptance rate here
It's tempting to divide 341 matches by 722 applicants and call the result an acceptance rate.
Don't — the Match's own totals show why that math doesn't hold up.
Applicants can rank more than one program type on their Match list, so the per-specialty applicant counts overlap: added together, the eight tabulated program types in the 2026 Match sum to 3,554 applicants against an overall pool of only 3,213 people.
That overlap means the 722 people counted in the orthodontics numbers aren't all applying to orthodontics alone — some are also on the general-practice-residency or AEGD lists, hedging their options.
A rate built from that count would understate what each individual applicant's real odds actually were.
What the Match numbers do support, reported exactly as published: 722 applicants participated in orthodontics for 362 positions, and 341 matched.
That's the shape of the competition — not a percentage.
What the numbers don't tell you
The Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program publishes participation and outcome counts — it doesn't publish why any individual applicant matches or doesn't, and neither does this article.
Board scores, class rank, and research all factor into a competitive residency application the way they do for any other, but the Match's own results don't break down which of those matters most or by how much.
What isn't published — and what this article won't guess
What it pays once you match
The reason people keep applying despite tightening odds isn't a mystery.
Orthodontists post a median wage of $289,140 a year, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS, SOC 29-1023, May 2025) — among the highest of any dental specialty.
For the full step-by-step path from pre-dental student through board certification, see how to become an orthodontist; for how the trained specialist's scope compares to a general dentist's, see orthodontist vs. general dentist; and for the role overview, see what an orthodontist does.
For how orthodontics compares to the other five specialty Match programs, see which dental specialty is hardest to match into.
This article is general career information, not admissions advice. Match outcomes vary by applicant and by year — verify current figures directly with the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program.