Last Updated: 10/11/2026
Dental Practice Overhead Percentages (2026)
General practice overhead averaged 62.2% of collected revenue across 100+ clients in 2025, owner and associate pay excluded.
Overhead Category
Percentology Average
Industry Standard
Personnel (Team)
30.0%
24-28%
Clinical
10.1%
12-14%
Facility & Equipment
10.8%
10%
General Business
9.3%
11%
Discretionary
2.0%
0-2%
Total Overhead
62.2%
60-65%
Source: 100+ Percentology general practice bookkeeping clients, calendar year 2025, published in 2026.
These are dental overhead benchmarks: each figure represents that category’s cost as a percentage of collected revenue, not production. The owner's and associate's pay are excluded from overhead.
How these averages are built
These percentages come from the Profit & Loss reports of more than 100 general dental practices we do bookkeeping for. The numbers are for calendar year 2025 and are calculated as a percentage of collected revenue, not production. Owner pay, associate pay, and their related payroll taxes and benefits are excluded from overhead.
Every practice uses the same chart of accounts and the same rules for what goes in each category. That is what makes the comparison usable. An outsourced billing service that replaces a staff person stays in personnel. Dental equipment over $2,500 is capitalized, and its depreciation goes in Facility & Equipment, not dental supplies. CareCredit fees taken out of the deposit are recorded so collections are not understated.
The sample is balanced, so no single state or region dominates the average. We exclude new practices, those still onboarding, and those in cleanup until the books are consistent. The year-by-year tables show the figures as they stand now.
The result is an average of practices whose bookkeeping is done exactly the same way, by the same people. That is the difference between these figures and a survey that mixes production and collections, or that leaves owner pay inside staff costs.
Personnel (Team) Costs
Personnel is the share of collected revenue spent on your team, excluding owner and associate pay.
Personnel by Year
Percentology Average
Change from Prior Year
2025
30.0%
+0.2
2024
29.8%
+1.1
2023
28.7%
+1.1
2022
27.6%
+1.0
*2021
26.6%
(1.6)
2020
28.9%
+0.7
2019
28.2%
+0.2
2018
28.0%
-
*Personnel fell from 28.9% in 2020 to 26.6% in 2021 because collections recovered faster than payroll after the 2020 shutdown. It has climbed every year since.
The 24–28% typical industry standard in the first table is an old target, not a current average. Percentology’s 30.0% is the 2025 average for 100+ general practices, with bookkeeping done the same way, and as a share of collected revenue. Owner and associate pay are excluded. Staff wages, employer payroll taxes, staff benefits, temps, and outsourced billing are included. An outsourced billing service replaces a staff person, so it stays in personnel.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Gross Pay - Dental Assistants
-
Gross Pay - Hygienists
-
Gross Pay - Office/Admin
-
Payroll Taxes - Staff
-
Contractors (temps, not associates)
-
Answering Services
-
Collection/Billing Services
-
Health Insurance - Staff
-
Pension Expense - Staff
-
Hiring Fees (job ads)
A practice under 30% can be lean, but it may also be missing staff benefits, payroll taxes, or an outsourced service that should belong in this category. Compare the accounts before treating 30.0% as too high.
Personnel well above 30% could mean the owner's pay and benefits are included in staff wages, or that a spouse or child is on the payroll for tax reasons rather than for a job the practice would replace. This average excludes that pay. Don't include associate pay or benefits either.
Clinical Costs
Clinical is supplies and lab fees, as a share of collected revenue. Over the last several years, lab fees for our clients have stayed about the same share of collections. The decline is in dental supplies. Supply dollars grew more slowly than collections, so the supply share fell while the lab share did not.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Dental Supplies
-
Laboratory Fees
A Clinical percentage that is too high could mean the bookkeeper missed large equipment purchases in your dental supplies account. Instead, you should capitalize equipment as a fixed asset, depreciate it, and include the depreciation expense in the Facility & Equipment category.
Facility and Equipment Costs
Facility and equipment include rent, utilities, repairs, loan interest, insurance on the building and equipment, and depreciation, as a share of collected revenue. Our client's share has stayed near 10% for years. It was 10.8% in 2025, against a 10% industry target.
Loan interest belongs here. The principal portion of a payment does not. Equipment over $2,500 is an asset, and its depreciation belongs here, not in supplies. Phone, internet, and computer support belong in general business.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Equipment Rental
-
Insurance - Building
-
Insurance - Equipment
-
Interest Paid - Loans
-
Janitorial Expense / Cleaning
-
Rent Expense (and storage rentals)
-
Security Alarm Expense
-
Repairs & Maintenance
-
Landscaping Services
-
Small Equipment/Furniture ($500-$2,500)
-
Taxes - Property
-
Taxes - Real Estate
-
Utilities & Waste
-
Amortization Expense
-
Depreciation Expense
-
Gain/Loss from Asset Disposal
If the Facility & Equipment percentage is super low, don't get too excited; it's usually because your bookkeeper hasn't separated loan interest from loan payments and put it in loan interest expense on the P&L. You may also be missing depreciation expense for equipment purchases, since CPAs manage those amounts in their tax software and might forget to add it to the bookkeeping at year-end.
If your Facility and Equipment percentage is much higher than 10.8%, you may have made significant equipment purchases or done renovations during the year, so a one-time event is driving the increase. That's not a spending trend problem.
General Business Costs
General business includes marketing, merchant fees, software, dues, practice insurance, office supplies, and professional fees, as a share of collected revenue. The category has stayed under the 11% industry standard for years. It was 9.3% in 2025.
Merchant fees and advertising are the two largest pieces, each about 1.5% of collections in 2025. Advertising above that is not automatically a problem. It is a choice, not a bookkeeping error.
Combined bookkeeping and accounting (CPA) fees for our clients are 0.8%. More on what a dental CPA costs is on the Dental CPA Cost page. This is a solid outsourced bookkeeping and tax services percentage to compare with your own, since everyone in our sample outsources similar services. This percentage includes monthly bookkeeping from a dental bookkeeping service (not a CPA firm), tax preparation and tax planning services from a mix of CPA firms, but no payroll or bill-paying services included in either.
Phone, internet, and computer support belong here. Small equipment greater than $500 but less than $2,500 belongs in the Facility category, not in office or clinical supplies.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Advertising & Marketing
-
Bank Fees
-
Merchant Fees
-
Computer IT Support
-
Data, Software, Apps
-
Dues & Prof Memberships
-
Insurance - Practice
-
Interest & Fees - Credit Cards
-
Licenses & Permits
-
Pension Administration
-
Postage & Delivery
-
Accounting Fees
-
Bookkeeping Fees
-
Practice Consulting
-
Legal & Professional
-
Phone, Internet, Streaming
-
Office Supplies/Expense
-
Payroll Service Fees
-
Taxes - Sales Tax
-
Taxes - State & Franchise
-
Uniforms & Laundry
If your General Business category is well above 9.3%, the owner's personal tax payments may have been categorized as a practice tax expense. Those are personal. They do not belong in any overhead category. Also, be careful that associates are not included in Legal & Professional expense.
Discretionary Costs
​Discretionary is automobile expense, meals, travel, continuing education, gifts, and team events, as a share of collected revenue. It was 2.0% in 2025, within the 0–2% range. Meals and travel were 0.3% of collections in 2018, 2019, and 2021, but 0.5% from 2022 through 2025. I'm omitting 2020 because of the shutdown.
The Discretionary costs category includes items that aren't truly necessary to run your practice, and they inflate your General Business costs, so it's important to put them in their own category to measure them separately. Team meals, travel, and owner continuing education belong here, not in personnel or general business. They don't belong with the doctor expenses either. If discretionary is near zero and another category looks high, those costs are probably sitting in the wrong place.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Automobile Expense
-
Automobile Lease
-
Business Gifts
-
Learning & Development (Continuing Education)
-
Charitable Contributions
-
Fines & Penalties
-
Business Meals
-
On-Premises Meals (not deductible)
-
Team Events
-
Entertainment (not deductible)
-
Travel Expenses
If Discretionary is well above 2%, it's possible that personal travel and meals are on the practice card. Review those transactions and keep only the business ones.
Owners, Doctors, and Profit
Owners, doctors, and profit is what's left after the five overhead categories. For our clients, it was 37.8% in 2025, against a 35–40% range. It includes owner and associate pay, their payroll taxes and benefits, family wages (if not performing a real role), and profit. Other income, such as interest or credit-card rewards, also falls here.
Draws and distributions are not included in this category. Those belong on the balance sheet, in owner’s equity, not on the Profit & Loss. An associate who is paid as a contractor belongs here, not in the Personnel category.
Expense Accounts Included
-
Gross Pay - Owner
-
Gross Pay - Associates
-
Gross Pay - Spouse
-
Gross Pay - Family
-
Payroll Taxes - Owner
-
Payroll Taxes - Associates
-
Payroll Taxes - Spouse
-
Payroll Taxes - Family
-
Contractors - Doctors
-
Health Insurance - Owner
-
Health Insurance - Associates
-
Health Insurance - Spouse
-
Pension Expense - Owner
-
Pension Expense - Spouse
-
Pension Expense - Family
-
Pension Expense - Associate
-
Insurance - Owner Disability
-
Insurance - Owner Life
Other Income Accounts Included
-
Interest Income
-
Other Income
-
State Grants
-
Credit Card Reward Income
-
Net Income/Profit (automatically calculated on the last line of your Profit & Loss report
Important Check: If the Owner's, Doctors, Profit category plus the overhead categories do not total 100% of your total collections, then an expense account, other income, or net income is missing.
How to calculate your overhead percentage
Group the expense accounts on your Profit & Loss into the five overhead categories above. Cross out owner and associate pay and their related costs so they stay out of overhead. Add up each category, then divide each total by collected revenue (not production). Don't forget to reduce collected revenue by patient refunds. The result is the percentage for that category. Add the five category percentages to get total overhead.
The 2026 averages on this page exclude those same owner and associate costs and use collected revenue, so the comparison is direct. For the full steps and the template, see How to Calculate Dental Office Overhead.
Troubleshooting Your Percentages
If your percentages are not close to these averages, check the bookkeeping before treating it as a spending problem. You don't want to drive yourself crazy over a number that isn't actually correct.
If every overhead category is high, start by investigating collections. A low or incomplete income figure makes every percentage look high, even when spending is normal, because collections is the number used to calculate overhead percentages.
Compare Your Own Practice
These percentages are a comparison, not a grade. There can be good reasons to be higher in one category and lower in the others. But a category off the average is worth checking against the suggestions above before treating it as a spending problem. The 2025 figures come from 100+ general practices whose bookkeeping is done the same way by Percentology, as a share of collected revenue, excluding owner and associate pay.
Download our overhead template and drop in your own Profit & Loss. If you want your bookkeeping done this way, Percentology offers it for dental practices through our monthly bookkeeping service, including overhead comparisons against client averages in our online client dashboard.
Sona Wegner is the owner of Percentology. She has an accounting degree and an MBA, started at a dental CPA firm in 2007, and has worked with dental practices since. She started Percentology in 2013. The averages above come from general practices for which her team maintains bookkeeping.