The cost ratio of a dental practice in France
What the 1,969 practices in the UNASA sample spend out of each euro they take.
A French dentist in private practice spends 65.3 % of net receipts on average once personal social contributions and deductible CSG (a social levy) are counted, according to the 2024 accounts of 1,969 practices filed through UNASA, the national federation of approved accounting bodies. On €309,713 of average receipts that leaves €107,474 of profit. Strip out the practitioner’s own contributions and the ratio is 49.7 %, the right figure if your accounts stop before them. Size barely moves the total, from 63.4 % for the largest quarter of practices to 67.1 % for the second, yet the mix shifts: small practices spend proportionally more on rent and contributions, large ones on staff. The sample covers sole practice taxed as BNC (bénéfices non commerciaux, the profit of a self-employed professional); companies paying corporation tax are not in it.
Your cost ratio against practices of the same size
Your cost ratio
67.0 %
| Benchmark, receipts quarter 3 (UNASA 2024) | 66.9 % |
| Gap | +0.1 points |
| Profit | €99,000 |
| Average profit in this quarter | €111,642 |
Quarter used: the one whose average receipts (€337,668) are closest to yours.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
Two definitions, one common mistake
The ratio is everything the practice pays out over the year divided by net receipts: fees collected, minus the share passed on to locums or associate dentists (rétrocessions). French accountants use it in two forms. UNASA counts the dentist’s personal contributions to Urssaf and to the CARCDSF, the dentists’ pension fund, plus deductible CSG, which gives 65.3 % for 2024. Running costs alone come to 49.7 %. A statement showing profit “avant cotisations” uses the second form, so check which one you hold before benchmarking.
A worked case: a practice taking €300,000 sits closest to quarter 3 of the sample (€337,668 average). At that quarter’s 66.9 %, costs come to €200,700 and profit before income tax to €99,300. The small calculator above runs exactly this comparison with your own costs; the full benchmark falls back on it when you leave costs blank.
The four receipt bands
UNASA sorts its members into four equal groups by receipts. Matching you to the nearest band matters because the national average blends practices taking anywhere from €121,826 to €542,562.
| Receipts quarter | Average net receipts | Cost ratio | Excluding personal contributions | Staff | Rent | Average profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quarter 1 | €121,826 | 65.8 % | 46.5 % | 4.9 % | 6.1 % | €41,608 |
| Quarter 2 | €236,480 | 67.1 % | 50.8 % | 9.7 % | 4.9 % | €77,889 |
| Quarter 3 | €337,668 | 66.9 % | 51.6 % | 12.0 % | 4.6 % | €111,642 |
| Quarter 4 | €542,562 | 63.4 % | 48.6 % | 11.9 % | 4.1 % | €198,678 |
| All practices | €309,713 | 65.3 % | 49.7 % | 10.8 % | 4.6 % | €107,474 |
Only 3.7 points separate the highest band from the lowest, but the content differs. Personal contributions fall from 19.3 % to 14.8 % of receipts as practices grow, since some are flat amounts, while staff climbs from 4.9 % to 11.9 %. Such a light staff line in the bottom band hints that many of those dentists have no full-time employee, though UNASA does not publish headcounts.
Line by line
- Purchases: 18.8 %, the biggest item: materials, consumables, small instruments. Prosthetics has no line of its own.
- Staff: 10.8 %, net wages plus social charges. Our page on dental nurse pay prices this line at the 2026 collective-agreement minimum.
- Premises and leasing: 4.6 % for rent, 4.0 % for leased equipment, heavier in smaller practices.
- Taxes: 4.5 %, deductible CSG included.
- Depreciation: just 1.7 %; much heavy equipment is leased or fully written down.
- External costs as UNASA groups them: 30.6 %, a bundle of rent, leasing, fees, insurance and personal contributions.
The figures describe members of approved accounting bodies, so the books are kept and checked. They say nothing about incorporated practices or health centres. Stomatologists are physicians in France and no practice accounts are published for them, so the site borrows the dentists’ benchmark and labels it as borrowed. For orthodontists, 37 practices give 64.5 %: a rough guide, nothing firmer.
Get the denominator right
A ratio is only as good as the receipts underneath it. UNASA starts from cash collected (€314,788 on average), takes off pass-through items and fees handed on to other dentists (€4,984), and lands on €309,713 of net receipts. Those hand-ons matter most at the small end: €7,758 in the bottom quarter, €1,778 in the top one, which fits dentists who partly work as associates in someone else’s surgery and return a share of what they bill.
Net receipts are also a wider measure than the fees Assurance Maladie, the national health insurer, publishes. Its 2025 average for a full-time general dentist, €302,480, covers only work recorded by the insurer, so implants, periodontal treatment and other non-reimbursable procedures are missing. Divide your costs by that narrower figure instead of your total takings and the ratio comes out higher than it really is.
From cost ratio to take-home income
What the ratio leaves is profit before income tax, already net of contributions in the UNASA version. DREES, the health ministry’s statistics office, measures something close on a different scope and year: €108,900 of average self-employed income in 2021, €118,100 with salaried work added, and a median of €93,700 (DREES). See where your own profit falls:
Your income against your peers
Position among private dentists (2021)
53rd percentile
| Median | €93,700 |
| Average | €118,100 |
| Bottom and top decile | €35,900 / €218,700 |
DREES, 2021 income in current euros; position interpolated between published deciles and quartiles.
A high ratio is not bad management by itself. Outsourcing a lot of prosthetics, employing two nurses or leasing new imaging raises costs and often receipts too; the page on revenue per dental chair looks at that side. Full accounts are on the UNASA statistics page; département fee averages come from Assurance Maladie open data.