How to Verify a Dental License in Wyoming Before You Hire

The Wyoming Board of Dental Examiners is the licensing body: it licenses dentists and hygienists and issues dental assistant permits.

Verification runs through the board's License Lookup page, which offers three downloadable lists — Active Dentists, Active Hygienists, and Active Dental Assistant Permits.

Wyoming verification is list-based rather than a type-a-name search box, so your check is a search inside the list you download.

How someone earns a Wyoming credential is a different question — our dentist licensure requirements in Wyoming page owns that.

This page is about confirming a credential is real and current before day one.

New to credential checks altogether?

Our how to verify a dental license guide covers the whole process.

Download the Active Dentists List from the board's License Lookup page and search it for your candidate's name.

The board states the site is a primary source for verification of license credentials, updated bi-monthly — the board's word, which can be read as twice a month or every two months.

Either way, a license issued or renewed since the last update may not show yet, so note the list's date when you save your copy.

The renewal calendar helps you read what you find: Wyoming dental licenses and permits renew every two years, in odd-numbered years, following 2021 Practice Act amendments.

If a candidate says a renewal is in progress, remember the lists only change as often as the board refreshes them.

Sedation takes extra work in Wyoming.

A Wyoming dentist needs a board Moderate Sedation Permit or a Deep Sedation/General Anesthesia Permit to sedate patients, and any dental office where sedation is performed needs a Facility Permit.

These permits do not appear as a separate list on the lookup page — so for an associate who will sedate, collect the permit documentation, keep the Facility Permit for your office on file, and confirm anything time-sensitive directly with the board.

Hygienists verify the same way: the board licenses them, and the Active Hygienist List is where a Wyoming hygienist's license shows.

The same caveats apply — a primary-source list, updated bi-monthly, on the two-year, odd-numbered-years renewal calendar.

Verify on the board's own list rather than a photocopy of a certificate; the list is what the board stands behind.

What a Wyoming hygienist may do once licensed is scope-of-practice detail — our dental hygienist requirements in Wyoming page owns that question.

Assistants are the exception: Wyoming dental assistants do not need a state license to practice as a dental assistant.

What they need is a Board of Dental Examiners permit to take x-rays and one to place pit and fissure sealants — so there is no assistant license to look up, and the permits are the credentials you verify, starting with the board's Active Dental Assistant Permit List.

The radiograph and sealant permits renew separately, so a clean check at hire does not cover a lapse two years later.

Training claims on a résumé deserve care.

The board issues the radiograph permit but does not provide the training — the Wyoming Dental Association, a separate entity, offers it — and since May 29, 2024, the board no longer pre-approves radiograph or pit and fissure courses (courses must meet Chapter 7 of the Board Rules).

The thing to verify is not a "board-approved course" label; it is whether the person holds the permit and shows on the board's list.

A national credential has its own check: DANB's online Verify Credentials tool confirms whether a person holds DANB credentials, such as the CDA.

But a national certificate does not stand in for the Wyoming permit the duties you assign require — check both.

How an assistant qualifies for each duty is on our dental assistant requirements in Wyoming page.

The License Lookup does not show discipline — the board directs users to its separate Discipline page, which lists public disciplinary actions taken by the Wyoming Board of Dental Examiners.

Check it by name for every finalist, dentist, hygienist and permitted assistant alike.

And given the bi-monthly update schedule, a very recent board action may not appear on the lookup yet; if timing matters, confirm with the board.

For board actions beyond Wyoming's pages, the National Practitioner Data Bank is the cross-check: state dental boards must report to the NPDB any action based on professional competence or conduct that revokes, suspends or restricts a dentist's license, censures or reprimands a dentist, places them on probation, or accepts a license surrender — and NPDB rules count a state Board of Dentistry among its reporters.

Wyoming's board runs its own NPDB query once an applicant's file is complete, before licensing — but that protects the board's decision, not your hire.

Any practitioner can query the NPDB about themselves, and the NPDB sends the result only to the practitioner — so ask your finalist to share a self-query.

Our NPDB queries guide covers the routes.

Other states, other look-ups: this research found no national lookup covering every state — dental licenses are issued and verified state by state — so verify an out-of-state credential with the board that issued it.

And a clean license is not the only screen: Medicaid and CHIP count as federal health care programs, so a practice that bills them for dental benefits is covered by the federal exclusion rules, and OIG advises health care entities to routinely check its exclusion list so that new hires and current employees are not on it.

Our OIG exclusion checks guide explains when that matters for a dental practice.

Save what you checked and when: a dated copy of each list result, plus a dated note that you checked the Discipline page.

Because the lists update bi-monthly and discipline sits on a separate page, a file with no dates cannot show what you actually saw at the time.

Re-run the checks if the start date slips.

Keep the supporting paperwork with the hire's file: sedation permit documentation and your office's Facility Permit for any dentist who will sedate — neither has its own lookup list — and, for assistants, the x-ray and sealant permits, which renew separately.

The renewal calendar gives you the re-check rhythm: every two years, in odd-numbered years.

Once the checks clear and you move toward an offer, the contract is the next Wyoming question — our guide to non-competes in Wyoming covers what restrictive covenants can and cannot do here.