Source Landscape

The ADA Survey of Dental Fees Was Discontinued in 2023. Here Is What Exists Instead

For years the ADA Survey of Dental Fees was the standard benchmark for US dental prices, including wisdom tooth extraction. It no longer exists. The ADA Council on Dental Practice discontinued it in 2023 and removed it from download after a change in law eliminated the safe-harbor disclosure protection it relied on. The last published edition covered 2022 fees. No 2024 or 2026 edition was ever produced. This page explains what that means for anyone trying to price a wisdom tooth extraction, and what real sources exist now.

Correction, June 2026: an earlier version of this page described a 2026 edition of the ADA Survey of Dental Fees, including median and percentile fee tables and regional multipliers attributed to it. No such edition exists, and those tables had no source. They have been removed. We apologise for the error.

What Happened to the Survey

The Survey of Dental Fees was a periodic survey of ADA member dentists, collecting the fee each respondent considered usual and customary per CDT procedure code. It was the most cited US dental fee benchmark for decades. In 2023 the ADA Council on Dental Practice elected to discontinue it, citing a change in law that eliminated the safe-harbor disclosure protection under which a professional association could collect and republish member fee data. Past editions were removed from download. The final edition covered 2022 fees.

The ADA Health Policy Institute continues to publish research on the dental care market: spending trends, workforce data, practice economics, and insurance participation. None of it is a per-procedure fee table. The ADA also states plainly that it cannot quote fees for dental procedures and is forbidden by federal law from setting or recommending fees.

The practical consequence: there is currently no authoritative national survey of US dental fees per procedure. Any page, tool, or quote that cites an "ADA fee survey" dated after 2022 is citing a publication that does not exist.

CDT Codes Define Procedures, Not Prices

The CDT code set, which the ADA does maintain and publish, is often confused with a price list. It is not one. CDT codes are standardised procedure definitions used on treatment plans and insurance claims. The wisdom tooth extraction codes are:

CDTProcedure
D7140Extraction, erupted tooth (simple)
D7210Extraction, erupted tooth requiring sectioning or bone removal
D7220Removal of impacted tooth, soft tissue
D7230Removal of impacted tooth, partially bony
D7240Removal of impacted tooth, completely bony
D7241Removal of impacted tooth, completely bony with unusual surgical complications
D7250Removal of residual tooth roots

Every practice sets its own fee for each code, and every insurer negotiates its own allowable against it. The codes are still the most useful thing on this page for a patient: a quote that lists its CDT codes can be compared line by line against another quote that lists the same codes. A quote that refuses to itemise by CDT code cannot be compared against anything.

What Actually Exists in 2026

Four kinds of real price information exist for wisdom tooth extraction. They differ in authority and in how close they get to the number you will actually pay.

  • Providers that publish prices. A small number of national chains publish wisdom tooth pricing. Aspen Dental publishes an average of $299 per tooth with a range of $184 to $488, based on its 2026 internal data (checked June 2026). Most independent oral surgery practices publish nothing and quote per case.
  • Consumer cost research. CareCredit's cost guide (checked June 2026) reports a national range of $1,200 to $4,175 for all four teeth, with single-tooth averages by extraction type, based on 50-state research conducted by ASQ360 in 2023 to 2024 on behalf of Synchrony. FAIR Health Consumer offers a free ZIP-code estimator built on billions of insurance claims, which makes it the closest thing to a geographic fee benchmark that still exists.
  • Your insurer's fee schedule. If you are insured, the contracted allowable, not any survey, is the price that applies to you. Ask the practice to submit a pre-treatment estimate (sometimes called a pre-determination) to your insurer. It comes back with the allowable per CDT code and your projected share, in writing, before you commit.
  • Itemised quotes from practices. The only binding numbers. A written treatment plan listing each CDT code with its fee, the anaesthesia type and fee, and imaging fees. Two or three of these for the same codes give you a real local comparison that no national source can.

How to Get a Number You Can Trust

Without a national fee survey, the reliable workflow is local and itemised. Ask every practice you consult for a written treatment plan with CDT codes and per-code fees. Ask explicitly whether the anaesthesia recommendation is clinically required or elective, since sedation is one of the largest line items and is sometimes optional. If insured, route the treatment plan through a pre-treatment estimate so the insurer's allowable and your share are confirmed in writing.

If the quotes you collect vary widely for the same CDT codes, that is normal: practices price to their cost structure and market position, and no rule requires them to cluster around a median. Dental school clinics and federally qualified health centres typically charge less than private practice, with trade-offs in wait time and chair time. The how-to-save page covers those routes, and the impaction-type page explains what each CDT code means clinically.

Fee Data: FAQ

Is there a 2026 ADA Survey of Dental Fees?
No. The ADA Council on Dental Practice discontinued the Survey of Dental Fees in 2023 following a change in law that eliminated the safe-harbor disclosure protection it relied on, and the survey was removed from download. The last edition published covered 2022 fees. There is no 2024 or 2026 edition.
Does the ADA publish dental fees at all?
No. The ADA states that it cannot quote fees for dental procedures and is forbidden by federal law from setting or recommending fees. The ADA Health Policy Institute publishes policy research on the dental care market, workforce, and spending, but not per-procedure fee tables.
What are CDT codes if not prices?
CDT codes are procedure definitions maintained by the ADA, not prices. D7140 (erupted simple extraction), D7210 (erupted requiring sectioning), D7220 (soft tissue impaction), D7230 (partial bony impaction), D7240 (full bony impaction), D7241 (full bony with complications), and D7250 (residual root removal) describe what was done. Each practice sets its own fee for each code.
Where can I find real wisdom tooth extraction prices?
Four places. First, providers that publish prices: Aspen Dental publishes an average of $299 per wisdom tooth (range $184 to $488, from its 2026 internal data). Second, consumer cost research: CareCredit publishes a cost guide with per-extraction-type averages based on commissioned 50-state research. Third, your own insurer: the contracted allowable on a pre-treatment estimate is the price that actually applies to you. Fourth, itemised CDT-coded quotes from local practices, which are the only binding numbers.
How do I compare quotes without a national fee survey?
Ask each practice for a written treatment plan listing every CDT code with its fee, the anaesthesia type and fee, and imaging fees. Two or three itemised quotes for the same CDT codes are directly comparable. If insured, ask the practice to submit a pre-treatment estimate to your insurer, which returns the contracted allowable and your projected share before you commit.
Why do some websites still cite recent ADA fee surveys?
Because older editions circulated widely and the survey was a standard citation for years, references to it persist, including references to editions that were never published. Any citation of an ADA Survey of Dental Fees dated after 2022 refers to a publication that does not exist.

Related pages: 2026 cost summary, CDT code breakdown, all 4 cost, how to save.

Sources (checked June 2026): ADA Health Policy Institute; ADA CDT Code Reference; Aspen Dental wisdom teeth pricing; CareCredit wisdom teeth cost guide; FAIR Health Consumer.

This page is an independent reference, not an ADA publication. The ADA does not publish or endorse dental fees.

Updated 2026-04-27