What a dental nurse earns in France, and what she costs
The 2026 minimum for every job in a French dental practice, then the full employer cost after contributions and relief.
In 2026 a dental nurse in France (assistante dentaire) cannot be paid less than €13.93 gross an hour. That is the rate in the collective agreement for dental practices, known by its number IDCC 1619, set by the deal of 12 February 2026 and made binding on every employer on 15 July 2026. Full time, 151.67 hours a month, it comes to €2,113 gross. The practice pays €2,409 a month, €28,912 a year: €873 of employer contributions go on top, then the RGDU, France’s general relief on low wages, takes off €576. A dental aide costs at least €2,013 a month. Treat these as floors, since they leave out the practice’s own workplace-accident rate, sector insurance and bonuses. In UNASA’s 2024 accounts, staff take 10.8 % of a dental practice’s receipts.
What an employee costs the practice
Monthly cost to the practice
€2,409
| Gross (minimum €13.93/h) | €2,113 |
| Employer contributions | + €873 |
| General relief (RGDU) | − €576 |
| Annual cost | €28,912 |
Workplace accidents: pooled share only. Excludes sector insurance schemes, bonuses and extra qualification allowances.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
The 2026 pay scale
Minimum pay for staff in French dental practices comes from the national collective agreement for dental practices, number IDCC 1619. A wage deal signed on 12 February 2026 and extended by ministerial order on 15 July 2026 raised it from 1 January (text on Légifrance). Each job has an hourly gross rate; monthly pay is that rate times 151.67 hours, the full-time equivalent of 35 hours a week.
| Job | Pay-scale rate | Minimum rate paid | Full-time monthly gross | Monthly employer cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dental nurse (assistant dentaire) | €13.93 | €13.93 | €2,113 | €2,409 | €28,912 |
| Dental aide | €12.56 | €12.56 | €1,905 | €2,013 | €24,154 |
| Practice secretary | €13.78 | €13.78 | €2,090 | €2,367 | €28,403 |
| Receptionist | €12.02 | €12.31 | €1,867 | €1,938 | €23,257 |
Leaving trainees aside, 2 rates on the scale now sit below the €12.31 hourly Smic that took effect on 1 June 2026 (Service-public.gouv.fr): receptionist and cleaning staff. Those employees get the Smic. The scale also lists €10.82 and €12.02 an hour for trainee nurses by age band; training contracts have pay rules of their own that this page does not compute.
From gross pay to employer cost
Three steps take you there. First add employer contributions for a practice with fewer than 11 staff: 41.3 % in total below the social security ceiling of €4,005 a month, covering health, state pension, family benefits, unemployment insurance, the Agirc-Arrco top-up pension, the pooled share of workplace-accident cover, training and apprenticeship tax, at the rates Urssaf uses for the general relief (Urssaf rates). Then subtract the RGDU (réduction générale dégressive unique), a sliding relief on employer contributions for modest wages. Its coefficient is 27.27 % of gross pay at the dental nurse minimum and reaches zero at 2.9293 times the Smic (Urssaf). For a nurse on the minimum: €2,113 + €873 − €576 = €2,409 a month.
The relief is heavy at the bottom of the scale and melts away as pay rises. The table tracks the ratio of cost to gross pay at four pay levels.
| Level | Monthly gross | RGDU coefficient | Monthly cost | Cost / gross |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smic | €1,867 | 37.50 % | €1,938 | 1.038 |
| Dental nurse minimum | €2,113 | 27.27 % | €2,409 | 1.140 |
| 2 × Smic | €3,734 | 4.94 % | €5,092 | 1.364 |
| End of general relief | €5,469 | 0.00 % | €7,728 | 1.413 |
Close to the Smic the general relief wipes out most employer contributions, so the cost is barely above gross pay. The workplace-accident rate the Carsat notifies to the practice replaces the pooled share used here, and the sector insurance scheme comes on top, so the real cost is somewhat higher than the figure shown. In practice every euro paid above the minimum costs the practice more than one euro plus the headline contribution rate, because the relief falls at the same time. The small calculator above shows the effect for any monthly top-up you enter.
Part time costs exactly pro rata
A practice may employ its nurse part time, or share a secretary with a neighbouring dentist. At the pay-scale minimum the cost tracks hours precisely, since the minimum wage used for the relief is itself scaled to the contract.
| Hours a week | Hours a month | Monthly gross | Monthly cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 | 151.67 | €2,113 | €2,409 | €28,912 |
| 28 | 121.34 | €1,690 | €1,927 | €23,130 |
| 21 | 91.00 | €1,268 | €1,446 | €17,347 |
Staff in the practice accounts
In the 2024 UNASA sample, staff costs take 10.8 % of receipts: €33,449 out of €309,713 on average. Divided by the yearly cost of a nurse on the minimum, that is about 1.2 full-time posts, a rough figure because UNASA does not publish headcounts and actual wages may sit above the scale. UNASA’s published year-on-year changes put the staff line at +8.1% for 2024, against +2.9% for receipts.
The share grows with practice size: 4.9 % in the bottom quarter of receipts, 11.9 % in the top one. The cost ratio page sets this line against purchases and rent, and the one on revenue per dental chair helps judge whether a second chair, and usually a second nurse, pays its way.
What the figure leaves out
- The workplace-accident and occupational-disease rate, notified to each practice every year by the regional insurer (Carsat).
- The sector’s compulsory protection and health insurance schemes, whose employer share is extra.
- Bonuses, seniority, overtime and the extra qualification allowances in the agreement.
- Payroll tax (taxe sur les salaires), which depends on the practice’s tax position and is not modelled.
So the result is a floor for budgeting a hire, not a payslip. This site is not a payroll bureau or an accountant.