Written by Sona Wegner (the owner)
Last Updated: 10/03/2026
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. The percentage represents the share of collected revenue, not production. The owner's and associate's pay are excluded from overhead.
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%
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*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.
A practice under 28% 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.
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.
Note: Equipment over $2,500 does not belong in supplies. It is an asset, and its depreciation expense goes in the Facility and 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.
A year well above 10.8% is usually a renovation or a large equipment purchase, not a new spending level to be worried about.
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.
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.
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.
Team meals, travel, and owner continuing education belong here, not in personnel or general business. If discretionary is near zero and another category looks high, those costs are probably sitting in the wrong place.
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, and profit. Other income, such as interest or credit-card rewards, sits here too.
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 personnel.
If Owner's, Doctors, and Profit plus total Overhead do not equal 100% of your total collections, then an expense account, other income, or net income is missing.
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. You also don't want to miss something that is a real problem. Below are some scenarios that cause incorrect percentages.
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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.
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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. ​
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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 add them to the bookkeeping later.
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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.
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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.
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Discretionary is well above 2%. Personal travel and meals are on the practice card. Review those transactions and keep only the business ones.
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If every overhead category is high, start with 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 the percentages for overhead.
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 books Percentology keeps the same way, 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 her career in a dental CPA firm, and the averages above come from general practices whose books her team keeps.