Dentists — Health and social employment by country
This dataset provides data on the number of dentists by status (ie. practising dentists, professionally active dentists, and dentists licenced to practice). Practising dentists provide services for patients. They include stomatologists, dental and maxillofacial surgeons. Professionally active dentists are...
What the numbers show
Dentists — Health and social employment is currently reported for 23 countries. The highest value is 1.83 Per 1 000 inhabitants in Sweden; the lowest is 0.65 Per 1 000 inhabitants in Canada.
The median across all reporting countries is 1.23 Per 1 000 inhabitants, and the mean is 1.16 Per 1 000 inhabitants.
The gap between the highest and lowest reporting country is a factor of about 3.
Over the past decade 20 countries rose and 1 fell. The largest increase was in Chile (up 81.0%), and the largest decrease in Finland (down 2.3%).
Dentists — Health and social employment: full country ranking
| # | Country | Latest | Year | 10-year change | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweden | 1.83 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 5.8% | rising |
| 2 | Chile | 1.81 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 81.0% | rising |
| 3 | Norway | 1.48 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 12.1% | rising |
| 4 | Israel | 1.47 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 17.6% | rising |
| 5 | Serbia | 1.44 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 41.2% | rising |
| 6 | Denmark | 1.43 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | unchanged | rising |
| 7 | Iceland | 1.3 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 7.4% | rising |
| 8 | Germany | 1.27 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 9.5% | rising |
| 9 | Hungary | 1.26 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 41.6% | rising |
| 10 | Montenegro | 1.25 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 48.8% | rising |
| 11 | Portugal | 1.24 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 40.9% | volatile |
| 12 | Belgium | 1.23 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 29.5% | rising |
| 13 | Romania | 1.19 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 40.0% | rising |
| 14 | Italy | 1.12 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 14.3% | rising |
| 15 | Luxembourg | 1.09 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2012 | up 16.0% | rising |
| 16 | Argentina | 1.08 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2023 | unchanged | rising |
| 17 | Spain | 0.88 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 22.2% | volatile |
| 18 | Finland | 0.85 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | down 2.3% | rising |
| 19 | Australia | 0.77 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 14.9% | rising |
| 20 | Ireland | 0.73 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 21.7% | rising |
| 21 | Malta | 0.72 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 33.3% | rising |
| 22 | New Zealand | 0.65 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2025 | up 6.6% | rising |
| 22 | Canada | 0.65 Per 1 000 inhabitants | 2024 | up 4.8% | rising |
Regions and income groups
Aggregates are excluded from the country ranking above so that a region can never outrank a country.
About this data
This dataset provides data on the number of dentists by status (ie. practising dentists, professionally active dentists, and dentists licenced to practice). Practising dentists provide services for patients. They include stomatologists, dental and maxillofacial surgeons. Professionally active dentists are practising dentists and other dentists for whom their education in dentistry / stomatology is a prerequisite for the execution of the job. Dentists licensed to practice include practising and other (non-practising) dentists, who are registered and entitled to practice as healthcare professionals in the field of dentistry. They include stomatologists, dental and maxillofacial surgeons. Please refer to the Sources and Methods for detailed country-specific information.