Can You Make Dental Staff Sign a Non-Compete?

Start with the federal picture, because it changed three times in two years.

In 2024, a federal district court set the Federal Trade Commission's Non-Compete Rule aside in Ryan, LLC v. FTC — it never took effect — holding that the rule exceeded the agency's statutory authority and was arbitrary and capricious.

On September 5, 2025, the FTC voted to dismiss its appeals in that case and in Properties of the Villages v. FTC and to accede to the vacatur.

In a final rule published February 12, 2026, the agency removed the Non-Compete Clause Rule (16 CFR part 910) from the Code of Federal Regulations.

As of this guide's October 2026 check, there is no federal rule banning employee non-competes — including at dental practices.

That is not the same as the FTC walking away.

The agency says it can still challenge individual non-competes case by case under Section 5 of the FTC Act when they are unjustified, overbroad or anticompetitive, and on September 10, 2025 its chairman sent warning letters to several large healthcare employers and staffing firms urging them to review employment agreements — including non-competes — for their healthcare workers.

The letters named nurses, physicians and other medical professionals; they did not name dental practices specifically.

So the federal question is settled, but in no one's favor: no ban, and no safe harbor.

Whether a covenant holds against an associate, a hygienist or a front-desk hire is decided by state law and by how narrowly you draw it.

The states below are the broad bans this guide's research verified: employee non-competes are void in each, subject to the carve-outs noted in the entries.

For any state not covered here, confirm the current rule before you draft.

California.

Business and Professions Code 16600 voids every contract that restrains anyone from a lawful profession, trade or business, and the California Supreme Court held in Edwards v. Arthur Andersen (2008) that employee non-competes are invalid no matter how narrowly drawn.

Since January 1, 2024 it has also been unlawful to include a non-compete clause in an employment contract or require an employee to sign one; a void clause is unenforceable regardless of where and when it was signed, and employees can sue for injunctive relief, actual damages and attorney fees.

Minnesota.

Statutes 181.988 makes covenants not to compete in employment agreements void and unenforceable, except covenants made on the sale or dissolution of a business.

The ban does not cover non-solicitation agreements, confidentiality or trade-secret agreements, or agreements restricting the use of client lists.

North Dakota.

Century Code 9-08-06 voids any contract restraining anyone from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business, with limited exceptions for the sale of a business's goodwill and partnership dissolution.

Oklahoma.

A former employee may work in the same or a similar business as long as they do not directly solicit the former employer's established customers; employment contract terms to the contrary are void.

Wyoming.

Effective July 1, 2025, covenants not to compete that restrict a person's right to be paid for skilled or unskilled labor are void, with exceptions including the sale of a business, trade secrets, recovery of training or relocation costs, and executive and management personnel and their professional staff; it applies to contracts entered into on or after that date and leaves earlier contracts alone.

Washington.

Beginning June 30, 2027, all noncompetition covenants are void and unenforceable regardless of when they were signed, and employers must make reasonable efforts to notify affected current and former workers by October 1, 2027.

Until then, a Washington non-compete is void unless the employee's annualized earnings clear the state's inflation-adjusted threshold.

If your practice is in one of these states — or you are hiring staff who will work in one — a non-compete is the wrong tool.

The alternatives at the end of this guide are what remain.

Separate from the outright bans, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Maine and Tennessee have statutes aimed at healthcare covenants, and most of them name dentists.

Where a statute applies, it replaces the usual reasonableness argument with hard limits.

Notice who is missing from these statutes.

Texas 15.501 lists dentists, nurses and physician assistants; Colorado's definition covers medicine, advanced practice registered nursing, certified midwifery and dentistry; New Mexico's and South Dakota's lists are closed and name no hygienists or assistants; Utah's list names a dentist, not a hygienist.

For staff in those five states, the general rules in the next section govern.

Tennessee is the exception: its chapter 5 puts dental hygiene under the Board of Dentistry, so § 63-1-148 reaches hygienists too.

Other states' healthcare statutes look relevant but do not cover dentists — and knowing that cuts both ways:

• Montana. The healthcare ban (MCA 28-2-724) ends with a closed list — physicians, psychologists, naturopathic physicians, licensed counselors and social workers, RNs/APRNs and physician assistants — that includes no dentists or hygienists, so dental covenants are judged under Montana's general restrictive-covenant rule (§ 28-2-703) and the Wrigg reasonableness test.
• Pennsylvania. The Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act (Act 74 of 2024) covers medical doctors, doctors of osteopathy, CRNAs, certified registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants — a closed list of five with no dental category, leaving dental covenants to common law.
• Oregon. SB 951 (2025) voids non-competes for "medical licensees" — physicians, nurse practitioners, physician associates and naturopathic physicians. Dentists and hygienists stay under the general ORS 653.295 conditions.
• Virginia. The health-care-professional ban lists people licensed by the Boards of Medicine, Nursing, Counseling, Optometry, Psychology or Social Work — the Board of Dentistry is not on it. A Virginia dentist is reached only through the low-wage rule described below.
• Delaware and West Virginia. Delaware's § 2707 applies to agreements between physicians restricting the practice of medicine; West Virginia's Physicians Freedom of Practice Act defines "physician" as a doctor of allopathic or osteopathic medicine. Neither reaches a dental practice, whose covenants are judged under general law (the Reddy test in West Virginia).
• Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Connecticut's healthcare statutes cover physicians and APRNs, and its dentistry chapter has no non-compete provision, so dentist covenants turn on the common-law Weiss factors; Rhode Island's dentistry and hygiene chapter lists no restrictive-covenant section; New Hampshire's RSA 317-A has none either.
• Arkansas. The 2015 employee non-compete statute does not apply to anyone licensed under Arkansas Code Title 17, Subtitle 3 — which covers licensed dentists and dental hygienists — so their covenants are governed by common law; the state's 2025 physician ban defines "physician" by the Medical Practices Act and does not include dentists.
• Louisiana. The physician-specific limits effective January 1, 2025 sit in subsections (M)–(N) of La. R.S. 23:921 and do not mention dentists, dental hygienists or other staff, who stay under the general rule in 23:921(C).
• Florida. The 2025 CHOICE Act covers only employees earning more than twice the annual mean wage of the relevant county — and expressly excludes anyone classified as a health care practitioner under § 456.001. Because chapter 466 governs the practice of dentistry and dental hygiene, licensed Florida dentists and dental hygienists are excluded from the CHOICE Act and remain under § 542.335.

In New York, the controlling rule is case law: the Court of Appeals held in Karpinski v. Ingrasci (1971) that a five-county ban on practicing "dentistry and/or Oral Surgery" was too broad, because an employer may not stop a former associate from working in an area of dentistry where the two would not compete.

A pending bill (S9759) would define "health related professional" to include a dentist licensed under Article 133 of the Education Law, but it is not law as of this guide's October 2026 check.

In Indiana, the statutory rules this research found are written for physicians; we found no equivalent Indiana statute for dental roles — though that absence was not exhaustively searched, so ask employment counsel what applies.

Where no ban or healthcare statute applies, enforceability increasingly turns on money and timing: several states void non-competes below an earnings threshold, and a covenant sprung on the hire too late can be void even where the rules otherwise allow one.

These are the thresholds and limits this guide's research verified.

Timing rules are easy to miss, and they void otherwise-valid covenants.

Oregon, Massachusetts, Illinois, Colorado and New Hampshire all require disclosure before the candidate accepts the job.

Oregon wants the written offer in the candidate's hands at least two weeks before the first day of work; Massachusetts requires the agreement by the earlier of the formal offer or 10 business days before employment starts, in writing, signed by both, and stating the right to consult counsel; Illinois requires written advice to consult an attorney plus at least 14 calendar days to review; Colorado requires notice in a separate signed document before offer acceptance; New Hampshire requires a copy before acceptance.

Spring a covenant on someone at orientation in any of these states and you have drafted a document you cannot enforce.

The same clause means different things for different chairs.

For an associate dentist, the first question is whether your state has a dentist statute and the covenant fits it — Texas's buyout formula, Colorado's outright void, Tennessee's safe-harbor geometry.

Federal FLSA rules treat a licensed dentist actually practicing as an exempt professional, and the salary-level requirements do not apply — which is what keeps Massachusetts's FLSA-status ban, and the overtime half of Virginia's low-wage definition, from catching a practicing associate.

The earnings floors — including Virginia's average-weekly-wage test — apply to pay alone, so they can still reach one; how Virginia's exclusion for employees paid mainly by commissions or incentives treats a production-paid associate was not settled in this research.

Hygienists are the opposite case.

Federal rules say dental hygienists generally meet the learned-professional duties test only if they completed four academic years of pre-professional and professional study in a CODA-accredited college or university program — and the salary-basis test still applies to them.

In practice, most hygienists are paid hourly and are non-exempt.

That classification is exactly what two of the bans key off: a non-exempt hygienist in Massachusetts cannot be bound by a non-compete, and in Virginia neither can any employee entitled to FLSA overtime — hygienists, assistants and front-office staff alike.

For assistants and front-office staff, run each employee's pay against these earnings floors before you hand over paper.

New Hampshire's low-wage ban voids a covenant for an employee earning an hourly rate at or below 200% of the federal minimum wage; Illinois bars covenants unless earnings exceed $75,000; Tennessee sets its $70,000 floor from July 1, 2026; and Maryland voids a covenant for anyone earning 150% of the state minimum wage or less.

In the dentist-statute states, do not borrow the dentist's terms for staff: the Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah rules name dentists and stop there, so staff covenants live under each state's general rules — the reasonableness test in Texas, the earnings thresholds in Colorado, the general law in New Mexico and South Dakota, and in Utah the one-year cap, which applies to hygienists and assistants too.

Maryland, Tennessee and Florida fold hygienists into the healthcare rule.

Maryland requires dentists and dental hygienists alike to be licensed by the State Board of Dental Examiners under the Health Occupations Article, so the $350,000 ban reaches direct-patient-care dentists and hygienists equally; whether it reaches dental assistants, who are certified or qualified rather than licensed, was not settled in this research — treat that as a question for employment counsel.

Tennessee's chapter 5 covers dental hygiene, so its two-year, 10-mile safe harbor is available for hygienists.

Florida runs the same way on the exclusion side: chapter 466 covers dentistry and dental hygiene, so both are health care practitioners kept out of the CHOICE Act's terms.

One consequence worth naming: a covenant you draft for an associate rarely survives copy-paste for a hygienist.

The buyout structure Texas expects for a dentist has no statutory home for a hygienist, and the exempt status that keeps a practicing associate outside Massachusetts's FLSA-status ban and Virginia's overtime test is exactly what hourly staff lack.

Draft per role, and for the employee's side of that decision — what a dentist should weigh before signing — see our guide to dentist non-compete agreements.

Even where a non-compete survives, it is rarely the sharpest tool in the drawer.

A non-solicit restricts who a departing employee may contact — patients or staff — rather than where they may work, so it keeps working in states that void the non-compete itself.

Minnesota's ban expressly does not cover non-solicitation agreements, confidentiality and trade-secret agreements, or agreements restricting the use of client lists.

Oklahoma's general employment rule lets a former employee work in the same or a similar business as long as they do not directly solicit the practice's established customers, and voids contract terms to the contrary.

Maryland's ban does not reach agreements about taking or using a patient list.

South Dakota's dentist rule leaves patient non-solicits alone so long as they stay within the general geographic and two-year limits.

Sale-of-practice covenants are the other survivor the bans carve out.

Minnesota's exception covers the sale or dissolution of a business, North Dakota's covers the sale of a business's goodwill and partnership dissolutions, South Dakota's statute does not reach covenants effective on the sale of a practice or an interest in one, Wyoming's exceptions include the sale of a business, and even California's void rule carries the statutory exceptions its courts apply (§§ 16601 and 16602).

Each exception covers a seller's covenant on the sale of a business, its goodwill or an ownership interest, on that statute's terms — so confirm with counsel before relying on one for an associate buy-in.

Patient lists and charts have their own federal route.

The Defend Trade Secrets Act lets the owner of a misappropriated trade secret sue in federal court, and business information such as a patient list can qualify — but only if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it derives independent economic value from not being generally known.

The statute also caps how far that route goes: a DTSA injunction may not prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship, and any conditions on the new job must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation, not merely on what the person knows.

In practice, the protection you get is the protection you can show you built — access-controlled practice-management logins, confidentiality terms, and a list nobody emails to a personal address.

Notice periods and retention do the work a non-compete pretends to do.

A written notice term in your associate agreements gives you runway to introduce a successor before patients hear about a departure secondhand — and patients stay because their care was handed off well, not because a court said so.

Retention is cheaper than litigation: a schedule people can plan a life around, real feedback, and pay reviews on a published cadence keep the hygienist you were contemplating suing from leaving at all.

Both fronts are covered in our dental hiring hub.