Dentist Salary by State
Real compensation data for dental associates, pulled from 1866 job listings in the last 6 months — averages, medians, top employers, and benefit prevalence per state.
26 states currently have enough listings (8+) for us to publish figures we'd stand behind. The rest are greyed out below — we'd rather show nothing than average a state off two job postings.
Most-viewed states
Dentist pay swings hard by state and metro. The most-searched right now: dentist salaries in Texas, California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina — plus fast-climbing markets like Nevada and Oregon. Each page breaks down average and median pay, production splits, signing-bonus prevalence, and the top-paying metros — from real associate listings, updated daily.
Dentist salary by state: 2026 comparison
Among states with enough posted salaries, Minnesota has the highest average base salary in our data ($294K) and Arizona the lowest ($190K). Production splits run from 31% in Missouri to 42% in Arizona. Most job postings don't publish every figure, so we only show an average when at least 5 postings in that state included it. A dash means not enough data yet.
| State | Listings | Avg base salary | Avg production % | Avg daily rate | Avg signing bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | 200 | $265K | — | $1,265 | $29K |
| California | 178 | $211K | 39% | $1,073 | $38K |
| Texas | 177 | $263K | 32% | $979 | $33K |
| New York | 120 | $244K | 35% | $1,123 | $35K |
| Virginia | 119 | $231K | 36% | $1,033 | $28K |
| Florida | 84 | $195K | 41% | $3,022 | — |
| Massachusetts | 83 | $273K | — | $1,453 | — |
| North Carolina | 79 | $239K | 35% | $1,186 | $29K |
| Arizona | 72 | $190K | 42% | — | $38K |
| Missouri | 69 | — | 31% | $1,106 | $37K |
| Illinois | 67 | — | — | $886 | $31K |
| Minnesota | 63 | $294K | — | $1,510 | $30K |
| Washington DC | 56 | — | — | $913 | $25K |
| Indiana | 55 | — | — | $1,075 | $69K |
| Washington | 54 | — | 37% | $800 | — |
| Nevada | 50 | — | — | $946 | $12K |
| Utah | 50 | — | 36% | $979 | — |
| Colorado | 45 | — | — | — | — |
| Michigan | 41 | $290K | — | $1,039 | $58K |
| Georgia | 40 | — | — | $2,290 | — |
| Tennessee | 32 | — | — | — | — |
| Pennsylvania | 29 | — | — | — | — |
| Oregon | 26 | — | — | — | — |
| Ohio | 24 | — | — | — | $43K |
| Wisconsin | 13 | — | — | — | — |
| New Hampshire | 10 | — | — | — | — |