Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Dentists and Dental Staff in Montana?

Montana starts from void, not from enforceable.

Under section 28-2-703 of the Montana Code Annotated, a contract by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business is void to that extent, except as two later sections provide.

So the question for your associate's covenant is not whether it seems fair but whether it survives two filters: the statute's own exceptions, and the reasonableness review the Montana Supreme Court applies to a covenant that only partially restrains trade.

The same court has said that Montana law strongly disfavors covenants not to compete and construes them strictly — a broad clause starts on hostile ground.

The framework draws no line among dental hires: Montana's health-care ban lists no dental occupation, so an associate dentist, a hygienist and an assistant all sit under the general rule — and the covenants the statute allows expressly are about ownership, not employment: a seller's agreement when the goodwill of a business changes hands, and partners' covenants on a dissolution.

Where Montana sits among the other approaches — outright bans, dentist-specific statutes, income thresholds — is covered in our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

Montana's rule is statutory, with a Montana Supreme Court decision layered on top — you need both.

The statute is section 28-2-703 of the Montana Code Annotated (MCA): a contract restraining anyone from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business is void to that extent.

Its exceptions are about ownership, not jobs.

Section 28-2-704 lets a person who sells the goodwill of a business agree with the buyer to refrain from carrying on a similar business within the areas that section provides, and section 28-2-705 covers partners on a dissolution.

The case law is Wrigg v. Junkermier, Clark, Campanella, Stevens, P.C. (2011 MT 290).

There, the Montana Supreme Court reviews a covenant that only partially restrains trade for reasonableness — the test set out below.

There is no federal overlay either way: the Federal Trade Commission's non-compete rule never took effect — a federal court set it aside in 2024 — and the agency removed it from the Code of Federal Regulations on February 12, 2026, so Montana law governs your covenant.

Montana does have a health-care-specific non-compete ban, and the list of who it covers is the whole question for a dental practice.

Under MCA section 28-2-724(1), a contract with a listed health care provider may not restrict the provider, after the relationship ends, from practicing in any geographic area for any period, or from treating or soliciting the employer's current patients.

Subsection (2) is a closed list: physicians, psychologists, naturopathic physicians, social workers, professional counselors, addiction counselors, marriage and family therapists, behavioral health peer support specialists, registered nurses and APRNs, and physician assistants.

The list has been growing.

House Bill 198 (2025 Montana Laws, chapter 131) added registered nurses, APRNs and physician assistants; it took effect on passage and approval and applies to contracts made or renewed on or after that date.

House Bill 620 (2025 Montana Laws, chapter 698) extended the ban to all licensed physicians for contracts made or renewed on or after January 1, 2026.

Neither measure added a dental category.

Dentists and dental hygienists are not on the list, and neither are dental assistants — so the ban does not reach your practice, and dental covenants stay under section 28-2-703 and the reasonableness review.

Two exceptions written into section 28-2-724 matter at the margins: the section does not apply to a contract for the sale and purchase of a practice, or to physician payback provisions that decrease over time, such as signing bonus, relocation, loan or tuition repayment.

When you are hiring rather than restricting, the credential comes first — dentist licensure in Montana covers what an associate needs before day one.

Wrigg sets the sequence an employer has to clear.

First, the threshold step: the Montana Supreme Court requires an employer to establish a legitimate business interest before a covenant's reasonableness is analyzed at all.

Without one, the analysis never gets to the covenant's time or area limits.

Then the reasonableness review, for a covenant that only partially restrains trade: it should be limited in time or place, based on good consideration, and afford reasonable protection for the employer without imposing an unreasonable burden on the employer, the employee or the public.

Montana's strict construction makes the margins thin.

The area limit the statute states is a seller's — within the areas section 28-2-704 provides — so for an employment covenant the time and place limits are whatever you draft, judged after the fact.

Keep the period short and the area limited to where the practice actually operates.

The sources this page is built on include no Montana decision applying that test to a dental covenant, so treat the fate of any specific clause as a question for Montana employment counsel rather than a template.

The health-care ban reaches patient non-solicits too — for the providers it lists.

MCA section 28-2-724(1) bars clauses that restrict a listed provider from treating or soliciting the employer's current patients, and subsection (1)(c) spells out soliciting or seeking to establish a provider-patient relationship with any current patient of the employer.

Because dentists, hygienists and assistants are not listed providers, that prohibition does not apply to a dental practice: a patient or staff non-solicit in your contracts is judged under the general voiding rule and the same reasonableness test as a non-compete.

How these clauses are structured, and where other states draw the line, is covered in our guide to patient and staff non-solicits.

For the patient list itself, the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act is the backstop.

Business information — including a list of patients — is a trade secret only if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known, and the owner of a misappropriated trade secret related to a product or service in interstate commerce can bring a civil action in federal court.

A DTSA injunction cannot stop a former employee taking a new job, though: conditions on the new employment must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation, not merely on what the person knows.

So build the protection into daily operations — individual logins to the practice-management system, no bulk exports of the schedule, credentials changed the day someone leaves, and confidentiality terms in writing at hire.

Because Montana courts start from disfavor, drafting is about surviving review, not maximizing reach:

• Write down the legitimate business interest first. You have to establish it before reasonableness is analyzed — name the patient relationships and the goodwill the covenant protects.
• Keep the covenant partial and narrow. A restraint limited in time or place is the shape the review rewards; the statute gives an employment covenant no safe harbor of its own.
• Use the seller's covenant when a practice changes hands. It is the exception Montana's statute states expressly — and the health-care ban does not apply to a sale-of-practice contract either.
• Pair the non-compete with patient and staff non-solicits drafted as narrowly as the non-compete itself.
• Protect the patient list in fact, not just on paper. Trade-secret protection depends on reasonable secrecy measures — access controls, no bulk exports, credentials changed on departure — with confidentiality terms in writing at hire.
• Consider a training repayment agreement for the skills you fund. It is a different lever with its own limits — our guide to training repayment agreements covers how they work.

Have a Montana employment attorney draft or review any covenant before the offer goes out.

And if you want the other side of the table, our guide to dentist non-compete agreements covers the worker's view nationally.