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

A review of New York law as of October 2026 found no statute in force restricting non-competes for dentists, dental hygienists or other health care workers.

So for a dental practice the rules come from New York's courts, and your associate's covenant lives or dies on the court-made reasonableness test described below.

New York has not banned dental non-competes, either.

The Senate's own bill page lists the 2023 non-compete ban (S3100/A1278) as vetoed, and this session's ban bills — S4641 and S9759 — passed the Senate but remained in Assembly committees as of early October 2026.

Watch them, but as of today they are not law.

Where New York sits among outright bans, dentist-specific statutes and income thresholds is covered in our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

The decision New York courts apply is BDO Seidman v. Hirshberg, 93 N.Y.2d 382 (1999).

The Court of Appeals held that a New York employee non-compete is reasonable only if it is no greater than is required for the protection of the employer's legitimate interest, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public — and that a court may enforce an overbroad covenant in part, to the extent necessary to protect that interest, rather than invalidating the whole clause.

The leading New York dental case is older: Karpinski v. Ingrasci, 28 N.Y.2d 45 (1971).

An oral surgeon's associate had promised never to practice "dentistry and/or Oral Surgery" in Cayuga, Cortland, Seneca, Tompkins or Ontario counties.

The Court refused to enforce the covenant as to general dentistry but enforced it as to oral surgery — the employer's actual, specialized dental practice — and BDO Seidman cites Karpinski for exactly that partial-enforcement approach.

And there is no federal rule changing that: the Federal Trade Commission's non-compete rule never took effect — a federal court set it aside in 2024, the FTC dropped its appeals on September 5, 2025, and the agency removed the rule from the Code of Federal Regulations on February 12, 2026 — so New York law governs your covenant.

No New York statute restricting non-competes for dentists, dental hygienists or other health care workers was found in force as of October 2026 — the review found no dentist-specific ban and no dentist-specific buyout formula, mileage cap or income threshold either.

With no such statute found, the reasonableness review described above is the test the sources behind this page identify for a dental practice, whatever the role.

Senate bill S9759 is the one to watch: it passed the Senate on June 3, 2026 and sat in the Assembly Labor Committee as of October 6, 2026.

It would bar employers from seeking or accepting a non-compete from a covered employee or a health related professional, and it defines "health related professional" to include a dentist licensed under Article 133 of the Education Law — so it would reach your associates.

It excludes highly compensated individuals, persons making an average of $500,000 a year, from its definition of covered individual.

The bill text we reviewed does not list dental hygienists in that definition, though the saved text may be incomplete.

A second bill, S4641, would likewise ban non-competes for covered employees and health related professionals; it passed the Senate and was listed as in Assembly Committee as of October 6, 2026.

Neither bill is law.

One more healthcare-specific wrinkle is federal: the Federal Trade Commission can still challenge individual non-competes case by case under Section 5 of the FTC Act when they are unjustified, overbroad or anticompetitive.

On September 10, 2025 its chairman sent warning letters to several large healthcare employers and staffing firms urging them to review non-competes for their healthcare workers — letters that named nurses, physicians and other medical professionals, not dental practices specifically.

And the covenant presumes a valid license behind it — dentist licensure in New York covers what an associate needs before day one.

Break BDO Seidman into its three parts and the drafting questions write themselves.

• A legitimate interest, protected no further than needed. The restraint must be no greater than required to protect the employer's legitimate interest. Karpinski shows how the scope of services is measured: the Court held an employer may not stop a former associate from working in an area of dentistry in which he would not be in competition with him, so the ban on all dentistry failed while the oral-surgery restriction survived, severed from the overbroad part.
• No undue hardship on the employee. This prong asks what the covenant does to the person who signed it — a clause that walls off a whole region or field of practice reads very differently from one tied to the services you provide.
• Not injurious to the public. The third prong is the test's own wording: the restraint must not be injurious to the public, and one that is injurious is unreasonable however tidy the clause looks on paper. What counts as injurious is case-specific — another question for your attorney.

On time: Karpinski held a covenant is not invalid merely because it is unlimited as to time, where the restricted area matched the area the employer drew its patients from.

Do not lean on that — a modern court applying BDO Seidman may view a 1971-era open-ended term on a narrow referral market differently.

A shorter, defined period is the safer draft.

On money: the associate in Karpinski had given a $40,000 note payable on breach, and the Court held the mere inclusion of a liquidated-damages provision does not automatically bar an injunction.

The note did not stop the Court from enforcing the oral-surgery restriction, and it did not save the general-dentistry ban — a clause drafted narrowly from the start protects more than one you hope will be read down.

The New York decisions this page rests on address non-compete clauses; the sources behind it include no New York statute or appellate decision specifically on patient or staff non-solicits at a dental practice, so treat any specific non-solicit as a question for New York employment counsel.

What a non-solicit buys you is narrower reach by design: it restricts soliciting your patients and your team, not where a former employee may work.

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: 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 sue 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.

The October 2026 review found no New York statute in force to draft against, so the value is in the drafting and the paperwork around it:

• Restrict only what your practice actually does. Karpinski is the measure: the general-dentistry ban fell because the employer did not practice it; the oral-surgery restriction stood because it did.
• Draw the area from your patients and keep the term short. The geography should track where the practice actually draws patients, and a defined period beats an open-ended one.
• Pair the covenant with narrow patient and staff non-solicits and written confidentiality terms, made real operationally — individual logins to the practice-management system, no bulk exports of the schedule, credentials changed the day someone leaves. Trade-secret protection for the patient list depends on those measures.
• Think hard before reaching for repayment clauses instead. New York's Trapped at Work Act (Chapter 643 of 2025, signed December 19, 2025) bars employers from requiring workers to sign an "employment promissory note" as a condition of employment, including notes framed as reimbursement for training; as originally enacted, the Labor Commissioner may fine an employer $1,000 to $5,000 per violation. A February 13, 2026 chapter amendment changed its scope and its effective date, and law firms disagree over whether the Act takes effect December 19, 2026 or February 13, 2027 — check the current status before you use one. Our guide to training repayment agreements covers the lever generally.
• Have a New York employment attorney draft or review any covenant before the offer goes out, and re-check the bill status each session — S9759 sat in the Assembly Labor Committee as of early October 2026.

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