How much does private dental treatment cost in 2026?

The table below shows the typical cost of nine everyday private dental treatments based on our research carried out in August 2026. They are not everything a dentist does - specialist procedures such as implants, braces and dentures all cost considerably more, and we'll cover each in separate guides.

The prices above often represent the simplest and therefore least expensive versions of these treatments such as the root canal being for a front tooth, and the fillings being for a single surface. Both cost more for teeth further back or where more surfaces are filled.

More complex dental treatments cost much more

Dentures, bridges and implants all sit well above everyday dentistry in price, and each deserves a comparison of its own.

• A partial denture typically costs £675 at the practices we sampled.
• A conventional bridge to replace a single tooth typically costs around £1,960, which is made up of two supporting crowns and the replacement tooth. Only 191 practices publish a price for a complete bridge, so treat it as a rough guide - where practices price a bridge by the unit instead, one unit typically costs £703.
• A single dental implant typically costs £2,583.

Practices differ far more on price on these than they do on a check-up, so getting several quotes is worth more here than anywhere else.

Emergency private dental appointments vary significantly in price

When you're in pain, you'd be forgiven for spending less time shopping around - but that's precisely when you should. Our research shows that within five miles, the dearest emergency appointment is typically four times the cheapest, and in over 90% of cases it's at least double the price. In Glasgow, for example, emergency appointments range from £41 to £295 within five miles - the same short drive, very different prices.

Just under three in ten UK practices on the regulators' registers (3,791 of 13,110) publish an emergency appointment fee. That fee covers being seen and assessed, before any treatment, which is charged on top, so ask what the visit is likely to cost before you go.

One of the biggest challenges when comparing private dentists is that there is no standard terminology for the treatment names. It means the name on a price list often won't match those used by other clinics nearby.

The names we've used in the above pricing table, and those on the left of the table below, are the most common, and alongside them, we've included some frequently used alternatives too.

Bear in mind this is only the most common name for nine treatments, but even then, when we compared every pair of practices in the same postcode district, more than four in five of the pairs described the same treatment in different words - 85% across the nine, from 75% for an extraction up to 93% for a hygiene appointment.

The picture only becomes more complicated when you consider that most dental practices publish considerably more than nine prices.

Some of the weird and wonderful names our research found

We have to say that dentists can't be accused of lacking creativity when it comes to what they name their treatments. Here are just a few of very many less commonly used names:

• Prestige Clean
• The Full MOT
• Emergency Comfort Appointment
• Happy Gas
• "Sparkle" Hygiene Therapy
• Jet wash sparkle Polish and Clean
• Standard tooth-coloured fillings - 5 star

"Happy Gas", which looks like the fun way of saying "inhalation sedation", is listed by no fewer than 14 clinics we gathered prices from. Perhaps more concerningly, three of those use that naming specifically for children!

While some of the above are amusing, the point is that all of the naming oddities make it harder to compare dental treatments and their prices between clinics.

Where you live in the UK does affect how much you pay for private dental treatment, but less than you might think. Our research found that the region you live in accounts for only about 5% of price variation, and even narrowing down to your local authority explains just 14% of it.

Where dental pricing truly varies is locally, with more than four-fifths of the variation coming down to which practice you choose in your own area. For example, a routine examination for an existing patient is typically £64 in Manchester and £53 in Leicester, yet, within a five-mile radius in both of those cities, you could pay as much as £94 and £82 respectively.

So while yes, there is a difference across the UK, and there are certainly more expensive regions as we will go on to show next, the variation is often smaller than that found between two practices on the same street.

The South West is the most expensive region for private dentistry

Our results indicate that, contrary to the assumption that London and the South East are the most expensive places for private dentistry, it's actually the South West.

Across the 68 dental treatments we looked at, the South West costs more than the UK typical price on 56 of them, and is the dearest region in the country for 27.

The South West is also the region where people are pushed into paying privately most often: 38.7% of those who had been to a private dental appointment went because no NHS appointment was available - the highest share in England, and double London's 19.4%. That is ONS survey data averaged across three years of survey waves, and the South West comes top in every one of them. In June 2026, just 35.2% of adults there had an NHS dentist - the lowest of any English region.

Why prices are higher in the South West we can't say for certain, though where an NHS place is hard to find, private practices face less pressure from a cheaper alternative. What we can rule out though is a rural and urban split, as we found the higher prices are consistent across almost all of the region.

NHS dental charges in England are fixed at three bands, so an NHS patient pays the same figure wherever they are treated. That makes the NHS much the cheaper route, where you can get on it.

A private routine examination typically costs £62 against £27.90 for NHS Band 1, and a private crown typically costs £750 against £332.10 for NHS Band 3.

However, that comparison flatters the private price. An NHS band charge covers a whole course of treatment rather than each item, so several treatments in the same band are billed as one, and more treatment within two months in the same or a lower band costs nothing more. Privately, each treatment is charged separately.

Some people pay nothing for NHS dental treatment. Check whether you qualify:

• England
• Scotland
• Wales
• Northern Ireland

Qualifying for free dental treatment is one thing. Finding an NHS dentist taking new patients is another.

Going private is a choice for most of the people who do it, and a fallback for a sizeable minority. In June 2026, 48.9% of adults in England had an NHS dentist, 36.2% had a private one and 14.7% had no dentist at all. Among those who had been to a private appointment in the previous month, 60.5% chose private care, while 27.3% went private because no NHS appointment was available.

Getting seen as a new patient is the hard part. NHS England's patient survey analysis for early 2025 found returning patients got an appointment 86% of the time, against 36% for new patients. ONS data from June 2026 agrees: of adults with no dentist who tried for an NHS appointment that month, 82% failed.

Yes, private dental prices in the UK have risen in recent years, and unevenly. The price practices advertise to win a new patient has not moved between 2024 and 2026, but the treatments that happen once you are through the door rose by between 5.6% and 10.2%. We only have historical data for six treatments, so we can't say whether prices for others have risen more or less.

Our past research only covered the above six treatments, so we can't say or show how prices have changed for other treatments such as crowns, implants or amalgam fillings.

It depends on the size of the group. Comparing each group branch with the independent practices within five miles of it, the four largest groups, those with 200 or more practices, are priced about £24 (24%) above their local independents on the typical treatment, and above them on close to eight comparisons in ten. Groups with fewer than 200 practices are priced within £6 (7.1%) of the independents around them. Counted group by group, 189 of the 397 groups we could compare are priced above their local independents, 189 below and 19 level, and the typical group is level with them.

The premium at the largest groups sits in follow-on treatment. A new patient examination costs about the same at a group as at an independent, but at the four largest groups a crown is typically £132 (19%) more than at the independents nearby, an emergency appointment £24 (35%) more and a hygiene appointment £21 (26%) more.

The largest groups also present prices differently. They lead with a "from" price on 80% of the treatments their branches price, against 41% among the independents around them, so the advertised figure is more often a starting price than a fixed one. Smaller groups use "from" prices about as often as their local independents.

To see how the four largest groups and nearby independents typically compare, here is what one person might pay over five years with varying levels of treatment.

Bear in mind, the above is still for relatively common dental treatments. If you require more complex work or additional treatments, the price difference will likely be much higher.

The questions below will play the bigger role in what you pay at a private dental practice, and most can be answered with a phone call or a visit to a website.

Which dental prices should I actually compare?

Comparing the cost of treatments rather than examinations should help you see whether a practice will be affordable longer term. A good way to do this is to pick a few treatments you could see yourself needing in the next few years and tot them up for the practices you're comparing. As the UK-wide differences below show, the more complex a treatment is, the higher the potential saving.

When you sign up to a new dentist you are choosing a practice, not a single treatment - most people stay with the same clinic for years. Changing when you need a crown or a root canal usually means paying for a new examination and X-rays somewhere else, so in practice most people simply pay what their own practice charges.

That is why the expensive prices are the ones to look at and ask about before you register, not after. A practice can look perfectly reasonable on routine treatments and still be well above the going rate on the work you need later.

Do I have to see a hygienist on a regular basis?

How often you need to see a hygienist is often a clinical recommendation based on your oral health and your dentist's examinations. If you feel the frequency of hygiene appointments is more than you need, raise it with your dentist.

A clean that is clinically necessary is treated differently from one offered as maintenance, and that can decide whether it falls under an NHS band charge or lands on a private bill at around £83 a time.

Over four years of twice-yearly visits that is roughly £664, which makes it the single biggest recurring item in routine dental care - a reasonable question to put to your dentist rather than something to accept as a fixture.

Is it worth travelling further for dental treatment?

In UK cities, yes, it's often worth travelling a bit further for dental treatment, because central practices tend to be the dearest ones. Around Manchester city centre, the typical white filling is £220 within one mile, £170 within five miles and £155 within ten - and over that same distance the number of practices publishing a price rises from 13 to 189. You get a lower typical price and more to choose from at once, and every large city we looked at follows the same trend.

That said, going further for treatment doesn't always hold true, especially if you live rurally as you'll only have a handful of practices within a reasonable distance.

Whether you should or shouldn't change to another nearby local private dentist usually comes down to a couple of numbers: the cost of a new examination, typically around £80, and the saving on the treatment that you need. The difference between what your existing dentist has quoted and what a local competitor charges has to beat both to make it worthwhile - and arguably a bit more, to allow for the hassle.

Switching tends to only make sense when treatment costs more than about £500

Generally speaking, our research shows that after you account for the new patient examination fee at a different dental practice, you only stand to save money if the treatment you need costs more than about £500.

Above £500 the saving might be larger; below it, you may be lucky to save anything at all.

How much you'll save very much depends on where you live, as cities tend to have lots of practices in a small area, whereas rurally you likely have a handful of options within a reasonable drive. It also depends on what your current dental practice charges. It may be that you're already at one of the least expensive in your area, but it's always worth checking, especially if the treatment is over £500 just to make sure.

These figures come from myTribe's August 2026 private dental price research, and throughout we report what a typical practice charges rather than a single headline average.

• We gathered 248,154 advertised prices from 9,269 UK dental practices across 68 treatments - the great majority of practices that publish prices online. After checking every price page back to the practice it belongs to, 8,571 of those practices remain in the dataset and the 8,158 that publish standard private fees are the basis for the price figures on this page. Prices given only in the chair aren't included, and we make no claim about all UK dentists.
• Each figure is a median of per-clinic medians - we take each practice's own middle price first, so a long price list can't outweigh a short one - and "most practices charge" is the middle half of prices, the 25th to 75th percentile.
• For this article we use private fees only, exclude membership-plan prices, and hold each treatment to a consistent definition, such as a single-surface filling or a front-tooth root canal. A "from" price and the bottom of a price range are counted at their stated starting figure, so every price on this page is the floor of what the practice advertises. A white filling counts only where the practice names the material.
• Whenever we talk about shopping around, each practice is measured against others pricing the same treatment within five miles.
• Our 2024-to-2026 figures track the same practices in both years, about 22 months apart.
• The practices we sampled don't track the UK population evenly - London (+36%) and the South East (+19%) are over-represented, which mirrors where dental practices cluster, and Scotland is under-represented: we found standard private fees at 77% of the Scottish practices publishing any pricing, against 97% in England. Re-weighting the figures to the regulators' registers by nation and region moves none of the nine prices in the table above by more than £14 - the root canal, from £450 to £436 - and leaves the crown at £749.
• Every figure on this page has been reproduced and independently cross-checked against the source data more than once, and we never single out an individual practice as cheap or expensive.

These prices are a guide to what you might pay, and are useful to show trends, but they won't reflect what you pay as that will depend on the tooth, materials and your clinical needs, which only your dentist can assess. Where a figure comes from an outside source such as the NHS, we say so.

Why these figures differ from our earlier research

We published dental price research in January 2025, from an online fee survey of 495 practices across the UK collected in October 2024. Those figures were later cited by the Competition and Markets Authority when it opened its market study into private dentistry in March 2026.

This round is not an update of that work. It is a different piece of research: 9,269 practices rather than 495, 68 treatments rather than six, and 248,154 individual prices. The earlier study sampled cities; this one covers the market. So the two sets of figures are not directly comparable, and we do not present them as a before and after. Where we report a change since 2024, it comes from a separate tracking series built to match how 2024 price lists were collected, not from the difference between our old and new headline prices - which is why we don't include the 2024 pricing here, and instead share a percentage change.

The prices on this page are what UK dental practices publish online. They are a guide to what you might pay, not a quote. The cost of treatment depends on your own clinical needs, which only your dentist can assess. Ask your practice for a written treatment plan and price before agreeing to any work.