Ohio State Dental Board

About this board

Dentistry has one of the clearest scope-of-practice ladders in healthcare: what a dental assistant, an EFDA, a hygienist, and a dentist may each do is spelled out in Ohio law. Verifying the exact credential — not just "works at a dental office" — is the point of a license check here.

The Board also issues permits layered on top of base licenses, such as sedation and general-anesthesia permits for dentists. Practices administering sedation are inspected and must keep permits current, which is a frequent audit item for group practices and DSOs (dental support organizations).

Dental Board by the numbers

These figures are ours, not the board's — we computed them from the full State of Ohio licence file so you can see this board in context rather than one record at a time. Data as of September 2026.

Only 44.2% of the 99,749 licences this board has on record are currently active — the other 55.8% belong to people who retired, moved, changed careers, or simply let a credential lapse. That gap is the single best reason to verify a licence rather than assume a name in a database means somebody may practise today.

Most common licence types

When a licence from this board is not active, the most common reason recorded is expired (39,394 records), followed by retired (9,234). Our status dictionary explains what each label actually means.

1.71% of this board's licences carry a recorded board action (1,710 of 99,749), against about 1.6% across all Ohio professions. A board action covers everything from an administrative consent agreement to revocation, and it is cumulative over a licence's whole life — see how we measured that before reading much into it.

Computed by OhioLicenseCheck from the State of Ohio eLicense dataset (issued licences only; application records excluded). Refreshed daily.

Who verifies these licenses?

• •Dental practices and DSOs credentialing new clinical hires
• •Dental insurers verifying network providers
• •Temp and staffing agencies placing hygienists
• •Patients confirming a dentist’s standing before major procedures

Verification tips

• Confirm hygienists hold an active RDH license — it is a licensed profession, not an on-the-job title.
• If a practice offers sedation, ask about the anesthesia permit; it is separate from the dental license itself.
• Watch expiry dates on every clinical credential in a practice, not only the owner-dentist’s.

Renewals and expiration

Ohio dental licenses renew on a two-year cycle with continuing-education requirements that differ by credential. Group practices juggling dentists, hygienists, and EFDAs across locations benefit most from centralized expiry tracking, since a single lapsed hygiene license can disrupt a full hygiene schedule.

Frequently asked questions