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

Yes — if the covenant is narrowly drawn.

Vermont regulates non-competes through case law rather than a statute, so the agreement you sign with an associate dentist, a hygienist or a front-desk assistant is tested court by court.

Under the Vermont Supreme Court's Summits 7, Inc. v. Kelly decision (2005 VT 97), a covenant is enforced unless it is found to be “contrary to public policy, unnecessary for protection of the employer, or unnecessarily restrictive of the rights of the employee.”

Nothing in that test asks what the employee earns or what license they hold, so an associate's covenant and a front-desk hire's answer the same questions.

What courts check is tailoring — how narrowly the covenant restricts where, when and in what capacity the person may work after they leave.

There is no federal backstop to plan around, either: the federal non-compete ban was set aside in court before it ever took effect, and on February 12, 2026 the FTC removed the vacated rule from the Code of Federal Regulations — so as of October 7, 2026 no federal rule banning employee non-competes stands between a Vermont practice and its covenants.

This page is the practice's side of the question.

If you are the associate handed a covenant to sign, that is the worker's view — see our guide to dentist non-compete agreements.

The controlling authority is a decision, not a statute.

In Summits 7, Inc. v. Kelly, 2005 VT 97, the Vermont Supreme Court adopted the test from its earlier Vt. Electric Supply Co. v. Andrus decision: courts enforce restrictive covenants unless they are found to be contrary to public policy, unnecessary for protection of the employer, or unnecessarily restrictive of the rights of the employee.

Summits 7 also answers the question that comes up the moment you want a current hire to sign: in Vermont, continued employment alone is sufficient consideration to support a covenant not to compete entered into during an at-will employment relationship.

An at-will hygienist who has been with you for years can sign one today without new pay attached, and consideration will not be the argument that undoes it.

The Legislature has considered changing the framework.

A House Commerce working group reported on January 8, 2026 that Vermont non-competes were governed by common law, and it recommended the Legislature consider statutory guardrails.

One bill, H.205 (2025–2026) — an act relating to agreements not to compete — was recommitted to the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development on March 13, 2026, its last recorded action as of October 7, 2026, so it is not law.

If a successor bill moves, the analysis changes, which is exactly why a template drafted under today's rules belongs in front of counsel before you rely on it.

There is no Vermont statute specific to non-competes for dentists, dental hygienists or other health care workers — none was found as of the January 2026 working-group report, which flagged health care non-competes as an unresolved challenge rather than settling them.

So a dental covenant is judged under the same general framework as any other employment covenant — nothing on the statute book singles it out for different treatment either way.

One honesty note: our research for this page did not cover Vermont decisions applying that framework to dental covenants specifically — that is a question to put to Vermont employment counsel.

Practically, that cuts both ways.

No Vermont statute voids a dental covenant for you — and none supplies a safe harbor either: there is no legislated mileage radius, time cap or buyout formula to draft to.

The same Summits 7 reasonableness framework governs an associate dentist, a hygienist and a front-desk assistant alike.

Other states do regulate dentist non-competes by statute — which ones, and what those statutes require, is covered in our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

Vermont courts check whether a covenant is “narrowly tailored in terms of geographical, temporal, and subject matter restrictions to protect the employer's legitimate interests” — and they approach the question with caution, because these restraints run against public policy.

Turn that into three decisions you can defend in writing:

• Time. The shortest restricted period that genuinely protects patient continuity and your investment in the hire. Vermont supplies no statutory number of months, so whatever you pick is a claim you are making, not a safe harbor.
• Geography. Draw the area from where the employee will actually treat patients — the practice's real patient draw — rather than defaulting to a county, a commute radius or the whole state.
• Subject matter. Scope the restriction to the role and the patient relationships at issue, not to any dental work anywhere.

Write the legitimate interest into the agreement itself — the patients this associate will treat, the specialized protocols you will train, the referral relationships the practice built.

A named interest gives a court something to measure the restriction against; an unexplained one leaves it with only the caution these restraints get to begin with.

Non-competes are not the only restrictive covenant in a dental practice, and the sources this page rests on do not answer everything about the others.

Summits 7 and the working-group report address non-competes; neither establishes how Vermont courts treat patient or staff non-solicits — clauses that stop a departing hire from actively targeting your patients or your team rather than from working down the road.

Treat the enforceability of a specific non-solicit as a question for Vermont employment counsel, and see patient and staff non-solicits for how these clauses are structured.

Confidentiality has a federal statute behind it.

Under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, business information — a compilation such as a patient list included — is a trade secret only if the owner took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known.

If a trade secret related to a product or service used in interstate commerce is misappropriated, the Act lets its owner sue in federal court.

Read its limits too: an injunction may not prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship, and conditions on the new job must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation, not merely on what the person knows.

With no statute to draft to, Vermont protection comes from narrow drafting and from the tools layered around the covenant:

• Draft narrow on purpose. Shortest time, smallest area, tightest scope that still protects the practice — the tailoring standard rewards restraint.
• Name the interest you are protecting. Patient continuity, training investment, referral relationships — write it into the agreement so the restriction visibly matches it.
• Split the covenants by job. A non-compete answers “where can they work next,” a non-solicit answers “who can they contact,” and confidentiality answers “what can they take.” Draft each as its own clause at its own width.
• Price training separately. If the real worry is recouping the cost of specialized training, that is a different instrument with its own legal limits — see our guide to training repayment agreements.
• Confirm licensure at hire. A covenant that restricts practice matters most for someone licensed to practice — our guide to dentist licensure in Vermont covers what the state requires.
• Have Vermont employment counsel review the final language before it goes in an offer packet — the framework is case law, and counsel is how you keep current with it.