NHS charges · private prices read 10 August 2026
NHS dental charges, and what the same work costs privately
NHS dentistry no longer charges one way across the UK. England keeps the three bands, at £27.90, £76.60 and £332.10 for a whole course of treatment. Wales replaced its bands with itemised care packages, from £25.00 for a recall to £182.72 for a back-tooth root canal, capped at £384.00 a course. Scotland charges 80% of an itemised fee, examination free, capped at the same £384.00. Privately the same treatments have median published prices of £65 for a check-up, £159 for a filling and £750 for a crown, measured across 39,049 prices on 10 August 2026.
The NHS charge and the private price are the two numbers a patient is choosing between, and they are almost never printed on the same page. These are both, treatment by treatment, with the government figure sourced and the private figure measured off practice fee pages.
Four nations, four ways of charging
“The NHS charge” is usually quoted as though one number covered the UK. It has not for some time.
England
£332.10 max a course
Three bands, one charge per course of treatment
England still runs the band system. Whatever the dentist does, the course falls into one of three bands and you pay that band once, however many appointments and however many teeth it takes. Band 3 is therefore the most any single course of NHS treatment can cost you.
Read 11 August 2026 from nhs.uk
Wales
£384.00 max a course
Itemised care packages, capped per course
Wales retired the bands. A course is now priced as one or more care packages, each with its own charge, and the total for a course is capped. This is why a Welsh patient and an English patient having the same filling can pay different amounts for it.
Read 14 August 2026 from gov.wales
Scotland
£384.00 max a course
80% of an itemised fee, capped per course
Scotland charges per item of treatment rather than per course, and a paying patient covers 80% of the fee with the NHS covering the rest. The examination itself is free to everyone. Because the charges are itemised, Scotland is the only nation where an NHS charge and a private price answer exactly the same question.
Read 14 August 2026 from NHS inform
Northern Ireland
Its own Health Service charges
Northern Ireland runs its own Health Service charges, separate from all three systems above. No figure is published here, because the official page would not load for us on 14 August 2026 and a charge we have not read is not one worth printing. Use the link below, which is the authority.
Authority: nidirect
Scotland, item for item
Scotland publishes what a patient pays per treatment, so these rows hold one thing against the same thing. This is the only honest like-for-like table on the page.
| Treatment | NHS patient charge | Private median | Private range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Check-up (examination) | Free | £65 | £40 to £100 |
| Check-up and preventive adviceCan include a scale and polish where the dentist judges it necessary. | £17.32 | £95 | £60 to £165 |
| Two small X-rays | £12.16 | no equivalent | |
| One large X-ray of teeth and jaws | £14.92 | no equivalent | |
| Course of oral hygiene and deep gum cleaningOver 1 to 4 separate appointments. | £35.52 to £142.08 | £242 | £95 to £1,100 |
| Small white filling, front tooth | £23.36 | £159 | £90 to £283 |
| Small metal filling, back tooth | £14.00 | £159 | £90 to £283 |
| Large metal filling, back tooth | £29.92 | £159 | £90 to £283 |
| Root canal treatment | £104.68 to £169.20 | £550 | £300 to £950 |
| Single crown | £164.52 to £204.76 | £750 | £485 to £1,150 |
| Simple extraction, per tooth | £31.80 | £215 | £110 to £450 |
| Surgical or complex extraction, per tooth | £60.76 to £83.20 | £215 | £110 to £450 |
| Complete upper and lower set of dentures | £379.60 | £928 | £500 to £2,045 |
NHS charges correct as at 1 November 2025, from NHS inform. A paying patient covers 80% of the fee and never more than £384.00 for one course. Private figures are the median and the 10th to 90th percentile of published UK prices.
Several NHS rows share one private figure because the NHS itemises further than practices do. A fee page prices “a filling”, where Scotland prices it by size, material and which tooth it is in.
England, band by band
An English or Welsh charge buys a course of treatment, however many teeth it covers. A private price buys one item. Two figures on one row are the two things you would pay, not a like-for-like multiple.
Band 1
£27.90
whole course of treatment
Examination, diagnosis and advice, plus X-rays and a scale and polish if the dentist decides you need one.
Band 2
£76.60
whole course of treatment
Everything in Band 1, plus fillings, root canal treatment and extractions.
- Tooth extraction
- £215 private median
- Wisdom tooth removal
- £375 private median
- Root canal
- £550 private median
- Fillings
- £159 private median
- Gum disease treatment
- £242 private median
Band 3
£332.10
whole course of treatment
Everything in Bands 1 and 2, plus crowns, bridges and dentures.
- Dental implants
- £2,500 private median
- Braces
- £2,577 private median
- Dental crowns
- £750 private median
- Dental bridges
- £750 private median
- Dentures
- £928 private median
Urgent treatment
£27.90
whole course of treatment
One charge for urgent care, whatever the appointment turns out to need.
- Emergency appointment
- £85 private median
Charges apply in England. From nhs.uk, read on 11 August 2026.
Wales, package by package
Wales retired the bands. A course is now priced as one or more care packages, each with its own charge, and the total for a course is capped. This is why a Welsh patient and an English patient having the same filling can pay different amounts for it.
| Care package | You pay | Private median for the same work |
|---|---|---|
| New patient assessment | £27.21 | £65 |
| Recall appointment, per visit | £25.00 | £65 |
| Urgent care package | £37.50 | £85 |
| Simple restorative care packageFillings, temporary crowns, Hall crowns and extractions, up to 4 teeth. | £36.03 | £159 |
| Extensive restorative care packageThe same treatments for between 5 and 8 teeth. | £68.75 | £159 |
| Periodontal care package | £48.53 | £242 |
| Stabilisation care packageFor extensive decay, 7 or more teeth affected. | £75.00 | no private equivalent |
| Anterior root canal care packageUp to two front teeth. | £91.18 | £550 |
| Posterior root canal care packageUp to two premolar or back teeth. Laboratory charges are extra. | £182.72 | £550 |
| Crown, bridge, inlay, onlay and veneer packageUp to 2 crowns, or a 3 unit bridge. Laboratory charges are extra. | £140.44 | £750 |
| Denture care packageUpper and lower dentures. Laboratory charges are extra. | £86.40 | £928 |
| Miscellaneous care package | £25.00 | no private equivalent |
A course is capped at £384.00 however many packages it takes. From gov.wales, read on 14 August 2026.
What the NHS does not do at any price
For these there is no band, no package and no comparison. The published private price is the only price.
Questions people ask
- How much does an NHS dentist cost?
- In England, one of three fixed charges for the whole course of treatment: £27.90 for Band 1, £76.60 for Band 2 and £332.10 for Band 3. Wales and Scotland price treatment item by item and cap a course at £384.00. Around half the population pays nothing at all through an exemption.
- How much is a check-up on the NHS?
- £27.90 in England, as Band 1. In Scotland the examination itself is free, and a check-up with preventive advice is £17.32. In Wales a recall appointment is £25.00 a visit and a new patient assessment is £27.21. Privately the median published price for a check-up is £65 across 641 practices.
- Are NHS dental charges the same everywhere in the UK?
- No, and they have moved further apart. England still uses Bands 1, 2 and 3. Wales retired the bands in favour of itemised care packages. Scotland charges 80% of a per-item fee with free examinations. Northern Ireland runs its own system again. A price quoted as "the NHS charge" is almost always the English one.
- Why is the private price so much higher than the NHS charge?
- Because they are not the same kind of number. An NHS band is a patient contribution fixed by government, and in England and Wales it buys a whole course of treatment however many teeth are involved. A private price is what one practice charges for one item of work, and it carries the full cost of providing it.
- What is not available on the NHS at any price?
- Anything cosmetic. full-mouth implants, teeth whitening, clear aligners, composite bonding, veneers are private-only, so the published private price is the only price there is.
- Is it cheaper to go private if I cannot get an NHS appointment?
- Cheaper, no. Available, often. Every figure on this page says the NHS charge is the lower one wherever it applies. The reason people pay privately is that a practice taking new NHS patients is hard to find, not that the NHS charge is bad value.
How these prices were measured
The NHS charges on this page are government figures, each one read from the nation’s own page on the date shown beside it. The private figures are ours: 39,049 prices read from 1,481 fee pages across 983 UK practice websites on 10 August 2026.
- Every figure comes off a practice's own public fee page. Nothing is a survey, an estimate or a model.
- One price counts once per fee page. A chain's branches all carry the group's list, and counting each branch would let one price list decide the market.
- Prices written as "from £X" are counted separately, not mixed in. That figure is the cheapest case a practice leads with, and it reads the market low.
- Prices covering a whole arch or a full set of teeth are left out of a per-tooth figure, because they sit at the top of every distribution.
- Only the 10th percentile, the median and the 90th are published. The extremes of a scraped corpus are where a mis-read price lands, and no single row can move a percentile.
- Lines that name a different job are dropped per treatment. Re-cementing a crown is not the price of a crown, and an extra whitening syringe is not the price of whitening.
Every treatment, priced
The full fee list, with the distribution behind each median.
All 18 UK price guidesCite this
Journalists and practices are welcome to use these figures. Please link back so a reader can check the method.
Voxletic, “NHS dental charges, and what the same work costs privately”, 10 August 2026. https://voxletic.com/dental-prices/nhs-charges-vs-private