Dental Practice Statistics 2026: How Many Practices, Sizes, Locations & Market Size

What's in This Guide

How Many Dental Practices Exist

The count of dental practices is surprisingly slippery, because "practice" can mean a business, an establishment, or a location, and different authorities count differently. The result is a legitimate range rather than a single number.

The ADA reported approximately 135,333 dental practice establishments in the U.S. as of 2023, including both private and group practices. IBISWorld, which counts dental businesses, put the figure at 179,584 for 2026, growing about 1.0% per year over the prior five years. The gap reflects methodology, not error: business registrations, establishments, and physical locations produce different totals. The key structural fact is consistent across sources, there are far more practices than practice owners, because a single practice commonly employs more than one dentist.

Source: IBISWorld, Dentists in the US: Number of Businesses | ADA Health Policy Institute

Practice Size and Structure

Whatever the exact count, the size distribution is clear: the American dental practice is small, though it is getting larger. The classic solo office still accounts for about half of dentists, but group models are steadily taking share.

According to ADA data, about 50.2% of dentists work in solo practice (down from roughly 67% in 2005), 35.6% in small group practices of 2 to 9 dentists, and the remainder in larger groups and multi-location organizations. Viewed another way, about two in three dentists now work in a group setting of some size. The logic behind consolidation is operational: staffing scale, shared overhead, and investment in technology and systems are all easier to manage across multiple dentists, which is exactly why the average practice increasingly employs more than one. (The detailed ownership and DSO story, who owns what, has its own dedicated breakdown.)

Source: ADA Health Policy Institute, Practice Modality Data

Where Practices Are Located

Dental practices distribute much like the population, but not perfectly, and the mismatches define both market opportunity and the country's access problem.

California leads all states with more than 20,000 dental practices, more than the bottom 20 states combined, followed by other large-population states such as Texas and New York. The top 10 states account for roughly 60% of all U.S. dental practices. This tracks population closely, but not exactly: the Health Resources and Services Administration designates thousands of Dental Health Professional Shortage Areas, concentrated in rural communities and underserved urban neighborhoods, and large rural states like Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming have the highest share of their populations in shortage areas. That persistent under-supply is why demand for care stays strong even as practice counts climb.

Source: Dental practices by state (compiled from NPI and Census data) | ADA Health Policy Institute

Market Size and Revenue

The dental practice sector is large and steadily growing, though growth rates depend heavily on which slice, U.S. services, global market, devices, a given source is measuring.

The U.S. dental services market was valued at roughly $174.9 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach about $185.4 billion in 2026, growing at a low single-digit annual rate; IBISWorld put industry revenue near $179.4 billion for 2026. Beyond direct revenue, the ADA estimates that offices of dentists generate a $487 billion total economic impact and support 2.5 million jobs nationwide when indirect effects are included. At the individual-practice level, single-dentist-owned offices have been reported to earn average annual revenue around $343,584 against expenses averaging about 72% of revenue, a thin-margin reality that shapes every operating decision.

Source: Dental practice financial statistics (compiled) | ADA Health Policy Institute, Economic Impact

The Pressures on Practices

Across every practice size, the same operating pressures recur, and staffing tops the list. These are the forces reshaping how practices run day to day.

Roughly 90% of dental practices report struggling to hire staff, even outside designated shortage areas, and staffing shortages consistently rank among the industry's top challenges alongside reimbursement pressure and rising overhead. At the same time, patient expectations are shifting toward digital: about 97% of patients say they would rather use digital forms than call a practice, and nearly 80% prefer text and email reminders over phone calls. The practices that navigate thin margins and staffing scarcity best tend to be the ones that reduce administrative load through better systems rather than more people.

Source: Dental industry statistics (compiled) | Dental practice hiring data (compiled)

Dental Practice Statistics: Summary Table

Frequently Asked Questions