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

New Mexico is a statute state, and its statute runs in the dentist's favor.

NMSA §24-1I-1(B) opens the list of covered health care practitioners with “a dentist,” and under §24-1I-2(A) a non-compete restricting a covered practitioner's right to provide clinical health care services in New Mexico is unenforceable upon termination of the agreement, its renewal or extension, or the practitioner's employment.

The statute reaches agreements, renewals and extensions executed on or after July 1, 2015 — so any associate agreement your practice signs today is inside it.

Hygienists and assistants are a different case.

They are not on the statute's closed list, so the law does not decide their covenants either way — those sit under general New Mexico law, which is a question for your employment counsel.

For how other states handle dental non-competes — broad bans, income gates, dentist-specific statutes — see our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

If you are the associate rather than the practice, the worker's side is in dentist non-compete agreements.

This is statute, not case law.

Section 24-1I-1(B) defines who is covered, §24-1I-2 makes a covered practitioner's non-compete unenforceable and voids out-of-state choice-of-law and forum clauses, and §24-1I-3 lists the provisions the law leaves alone.

Dentists have been covered from the start: the original 2015 law, SB 325, listed dentists, osteopathic physicians, physicians, podiatrists and certified registered nurse anesthetists, and later amendments added the rest.

In 2023, SB 106 added physician assistants and pharmacists.

Other attempts to move the lines failed: a 2023 bill (HB 385) that would have made patient and employee non-solicitation provisions unenforceable died without being enacted, and a 2025 bill to add veterinarians died as well, leaving the list unchanged through the 2025 session.

Dates matter in two ways.

The unenforceability rule reaches agreements executed on or after July 1, 2015; the ban on out-of-state clauses reaches those executed on or after July 1, 2017.

Under §24-1I-2(B), a provision in an agreement for clinical services in New Mexico is void if it makes the agreement subject to another state's law or requires litigation in another state — so a multi-state template cannot route an associate's contract to another state's courts.

Covenants executed before July 1, 2015 and not renewed or extended since sit outside the statute's stated scope; have New Mexico employment counsel review any you still rely on.

New Mexico has a genuine dentist-specific rule, and it works against enforcement rather than for it.

“A dentist” is listed first among covered practitioners — ahead of osteopathic physicians, physicians, podiatrists, certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, psychologists, physician assistants and pharmacists.

Based on the provisions this page walks through, the unenforceability does not hinge on what the dentist earns, and the statute sets out no buyout amount, mileage radius or term length that revives a covered covenant after termination.

The law also does not reach agreements between health care practitioners who are shareholders, owners, partners or directors of a health care practice.

When both sides are already practitioner-owners — co-owners signing a shareholder or partnership agreement — the statute's limits do not apply to that agreement.

Whether the exclusion reaches a covenant an associate signs before becoming an owner, or one given to a buyer who is not a practitioner, is not settled here; take those to your counsel.

Hygienists and assistants are the opposite case: not named, so not covered.

The statute neither voids nor blesses a covenant in a hygienist's or assistant's agreement, and you should not assume either result — that question belongs with your employment counsel.

For a covered practitioner, there is no time-and-area balancing to win.

Under §24-1I-2(A) the provision “shall be unenforceable” upon termination, so the outcome comes from the statute rather than from a court weighing the restricted months, the radius and your legitimate business interest — drafting the covenant more narrowly does not rescue it.

The reasonableness language the law does contain is aimed at money, not geography: liquidated damages are allowed when they are reasonable at execution, and unreasonably large liquidated damages are void as a penalty.

The statute's own time ceilings attach to its carve-outs rather than to a judicial test.

Non-solicitation provisions are left alone for one year or less after the last date of employment, and repayment provisions cover practitioners who have worked less than three years.

Those limits are in the statute itself — draft to them instead of leaving them for a court to sort out.

For hygienists and assistants the calculus is different: outside the statute, a covenant would be weighed under general New Mexico law.

How the state's courts treat duration, geography and scope for staff who are not covered practitioners was outside this research, so treat any staff covenant as a question for employment counsel before it goes into an offer packet.

This is the statute's practical trade.

Section 24-1I-3 does not limit nonsolicitation provisions covering the patients and employees of the party seeking to enforce the agreement, for one year or less after the last date of employment — a departing associate can be barred from soliciting your patients and your staff for up to a year, but not from working down the street.

The 2023 bill that would have flipped this died, so the one-year allowance stands.

Nondisclosure provisions are also expressly left alone.

A confidentiality clause covering your patient lists, fee schedules and practice information travels with the agreement, and federal trade-secret law can backstop it: business information such as a patient list counts as a trade secret only if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known.

Even then, a federal trade-secret injunction cannot stop a former employee from taking a new job — conditions on new employment must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation, not merely on what the person knows.

Keep the line clean: the carve-out protects nonsolicitation provisions, while a clause that instead restricts a covered practitioner's clinical practice stays on the unenforceable side of §24-1I-2(A).

Our guide to patient and staff non-solicits covers how these clauses are built and where they meet your duties to patients.

Draft the associate agreement around what survives, and spend the enforcement energy on the practice itself:

• Rewrite the template around the carve-outs. The surviving package for a covered practitioner includes a patient and employee non-solicit of one year or less, nondisclosure terms, repayment provisions and damages terms that are reasonable when the agreement is signed — the non-compete clause itself is not coming back from a court.
• Use repayment deliberately. The statute leaves alone provisions requiring a practitioner with less than three years of service to repay all or a portion of loans, relocation expenses, signing bonuses or recruiting, education and training expenses. If sign-on money or training costs are part of the deal, put repayment terms in the contract — see our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Keep damages proportionate. If money is tied to breach, keep liquidated damages reasonable when the agreement is signed — unreasonably large ones are void as a penalty.
• Point the contract at New Mexico. For agreements covering clinical services in the state, a clause naming another state's law or courts is void.
• Handle owner deals separately. Agreements among practitioners who are already owners, partners, shareholders or directors sit outside the law; have counsel review buy-in and sale covenants signed before ownership or with a non-practitioner buyer.
• Have counsel review staff covenants. Hygienist and assistant agreements are general-law territory the statute does not settle.
• Verify the license at hire. A covenant is not the only gate between a recruit and their first day — our guide to dentist licensure in New Mexico covers what the state requires.