Becoming a periodontist means first becoming a dentist, then completing an accredited periodontics residency — at least 30 months of instruction across three consecutive academic years, the Commission on Dental Accreditation's (CODA) published minimum — and, optionally, earning board certification from the American Board of Periodontology (ABP).
The residency is where you master periodontal disease treatment and dental implant placement.
Here's the path.
The short answer
You become a dentist first, then complete an accredited periodontics residency — CODA's minimum is three consecutive academic years with at least 30 months of instruction — and can then pursue American Board of Periodontology (ABP) certification.
The American Academy of Periodontology describes this on perio.org as "three additional years of education beyond dental school." The residency adds what general dentists don't have: focused training in periodontal disease treatment and surgical implant placement.
For how specialty training works in general — CODA accreditation, the match, and boards across all 12 dental specialties — see dental residency & board certification.
The step-by-step path
Four steps take you from dental student to periodontist:
Earn a bachelor's degree with prerequisites
Complete undergrad with the required sciences and a competitive GPA — the foundation for dental school and residency.Complete dental school (DDS or DMD)
Four years of dental school earns a DDS or DMD. Strong grades, board scores, and clinical experience matter for a competitive periodontics application.Match into a periodontics residency (30-month CODA minimum)
Apply to an accredited periodontics program, typically through a match — see how competitive that match actually is for the 2026 applicant-vs-position numbers. CODA's Standard 4-1 requires the program to run "three consecutive academic years with a minimum of 30 months of instruction," with at least two consecutive years of clinical education in a single educational setting. Treat 30 months as a floor a program cannot go below, not a typical length — actual program lengths beyond that minimum aren't published.Earn ABP board certification (optional)
After residency, a periodontist can pursue certification from the American Board of Periodontology — voluntary, earned through a written Qualifying Examination and an Oral Examination. See board certification in periodontology for how that two-exam process works. It's a recognized mark of expertise, not a requirement to practice.
What it takes — and what it pays
Periodontics is a referral-driven specialty — cases arrive almost entirely from general dentists rather than patients booking directly — so building those referral relationships is part of the career, alongside the surgical skill the residency builds.
Pay is best read as directional: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has no periodontics-specific wage figure, grouping the specialty under the broad "Dentists, all other specialists" category (SOC 29-1029) instead of tracking it on its own code.
See which dental specialty pays the most for how that grouping works and how it compares to the specialties that do have their own BLS figure.
For the full role, see what a periodontist does.
This article is general career information; pay figures are directional and vary by source, ownership, and location.