The Burrow
May 13, 2024
From affordability and trustworthiness to appointment availability and even having the appropriate health insurance in place, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to your oral hygiene and getting dental treatments.
Some people are actively choosing to go abroad to get their teeth done because this may work out cheaper than if they got it done in their home country.
We believe that it’s a good idea to stay local and get your dental work done closer to home with registered doctors, reliable care, and enforcement bodies and regulation to help give you avenues if things go wrong. It’s less risky to stay local, and you may need follow up appointments to make sure your teeth are in the best of health.
However, for those who are choosing to travel abroad, these are some of the most popular destinations for dental tourism.
Taking the number one spot with an impressive index score of 2.293 out of 3 is Costa Rica. With an astounding 10.58 dentists per 10,000 people, the most out of all the countries in our index, combined with ‘dental tourism Costa Rica’ being searched a whopping 880 times per month, it’s no surprise they managed to land the top spot.
Poland is next up in our rankings after achieving an index score of 1.791. Managing to fall just behind Costa Rica when it comes to the number of dentists per 10,000 residents at 10.12, its score was boosted up due to the inexpensive average price of a dental procedure given that it costs US$431.86 in Poland, versus a slightly higher $445 in Costa Rica.
Mexico isn’t too far behind, managing to achieve a still impressive 1.744 in our index, a score that secures its third position in our rankings. The driving factor behind this is that there’s clearly a lot of interest online about potentially travelling to Mexico for dental procedures, as evidenced by the fact that 1,600 people are searching for ‘dental tourism Mexico’ per month. This is the highest monthly search volume of all the countries, and almost double that of the next highest country, which turns out to be tied between Costa Rica and Türkiye (880).
Fourth place on our index goes to Türkiye, with a score of 1.617. Most notably, it has the joint second highest monthly search volume alongside Costa Rica, with 880 people looking up ‘dental tourism Türkiye’ online each month. What we can gather from this is that there is interest online, and people are looking into whether they should travel to Türkiye for these sorts of procedures.
Rounding out our top five dental tourism hotspots with a total index score of 1.596 is Hungary. The second-cheapest hotspot in our entire index after India, and the cheapest of all the top five, the average key dental procedure in Hungary will set you back just $357.43. Hungary also ranks among the top half of countries in our index for the number of dentists (6.75 per 10,000 people) and interest online (260 searches per month).
Delving deeper into the actual costs of these dental procedures, India is the country offering the cheapest dental procedures on average (US$230.43, AU$347.95, €211.99). In terms of specific procedure costs, the cheapest option you’ll find in India is a filling at just $33. However, it’s also worth noting that single implants, which are the most expensive at $631, still work out to be significantly less than any of the other countries included in our index.
According to our research, Hungary is the second-cheapest country with the average cost coming to $357.43 (AU$539.72 or €328.83). Similar to India, fillings are the cheapest procedure on average at $45 whereas single implants are the costliest at $1,158.
In Serbia, a typical dental treatment also tends to be on the cheaper side, totalling just $372.67 (AU$562.73 or €342.85). In our index, fillings are consistently the procedure with the smallest price tag. However, this isn’t the case in Serbia, where root canals cost only $54 on average compared to fillings, which are almost triple that at $131. However, single implants are still the costliest, much like almost all of the other countries included in our research, totalling $747 on average.
Meanwhile, Australia has the highest average cost at $1,084.57, which works out at AU$1,637.70 or €997.81. At around $192, the cheapest procedure you can get done is a filling whilst the most expensive are single implants which could set you back a whopping $2,942.
Next up is Brazil, where the average dental procedure comes to $930.29 (AU$1,404.73 or €855.86). Interestingly, whilst the cheapest treatment is yet again fillings at $256, Brazil is the only country in our research where single implants aren’t the costliest option with dentures taking that spot and costing around $1,898.
Landing the final spot in the top three most expensive places to get dental treatments is Spain, where the average cost comes to around $585 (AU$883.35 or €538.20). Obviously, this average cost is almost half of the other top two most expensive countries, but it’s still more than double the price of the cheapest country in our list – India.
Commenting on the research, Executive General Manager of Health, Life and Energy at Compare the Market, Steven Spicer, notes that it’s important not to risk your dental health to save money.
“Dental treatment can seem expensive, but it’s important not to compromise on quality for affordability. After all, oral health is more than just how things look on the outside, and procedures should be done by a trusted and qualified professional, regardless of whether you’re abroad or not,” Mr Spicer said.
“Australians have access to some of the highest quality medical care in the world. It comes with a cost, but there are strict standards and oversight to ensure quality medical care is delivered for all patients – and that patients have an avenue to turn to if things go wrong.
“For peace of mind, a health insurance policy that includes dental can help to reduce the cost of looking after your teeth.
“By using private health insurance, you can choose your own local doctor when being treated as a private inpatient, avoid multiple overseas trips for post-operative care, and feel at ease knowing you’re receiving reliable, safe treatment from credible and local doctors.”
This dataset ranks 13 countries, based on how good they are for dental care. To do this, 3 different factors were used. Once the data for the factors was collected, the factors were then normalised, to provide each factor with a score between 0 and 1. If data was not available, a score of 0 was given. The normalised values were then summed, to give each location a total score out of 3. The locations were then ranked from highest to lowest, based on their total scores.
The factors used are as follows:
The factors were indexed as follows:
All data is correct as of 04/04/24. The ranking data shown is a compilation of multiple data sources and may not be representative of real life. All data is accurate with regards to the sources provided. Conversion rates used: 1 USD – 1.51 AUD, 1 USD – 0.92 EUR.