The ADA Health Policy Institute tracks U.S. dentist retirement and age distribution patterns to predict the future supply of the dental workforce.
Dentists are retiring around age 69 as of 2023. The average retirement age has returned to its pre-pandemic level. Over the last two decades, the average age of retirement for U.S. dentists has gone up. In 2001, the average retirement age of dentists was 64.7.
More dentists are fresh out of dental school or near retirement. In 2017, the U.S. dentist workforce was defined by a generational divide, with large shares of younger dentists ages 30-40 and dentists near retirement age. Five years later, a larger share of dentists are younger while a smaller share of dentists are near retirement age, indicating that the shift toward a younger generation of dentists is underway.
Since 2001, the average age of dentists has gradually gone up, reaching a high point of 50 in 2014 before steadily decreasing to 48.8 today.
The average career span of a U.S. dentist is 41.8 years. Dentists today work an average of four years more than they did in 2001.
Most dentists who retired in 2023 had a career span of at least 35 years.
Source: ADA Health Policy Institute analysis of ADA masterfile.