Dental Practice Valuation Calculator

Practice value depends heavily on who's buying. An individual dentist using an SBA loan is constrained by debt service capacity. A regional DSO pays on EBITDA multiples. A national platform acquirer pays a premium for practices above a revenue threshold. This calculator runs all three scenarios so you can see the range — and what matters most in each.

Enter your practice's actual financials below. Results use 2026 market multiples compiled from dental M&A transaction data.¹

How dental practices are valued

Three methods dominate dental practice M&A. Each buyer type weights them differently.

1. Collections multiple

The oldest rule of thumb: practice value as a percentage of annual gross collections. For a general dentist, that's roughly 60–75% of collections for an individual buyer — the underlying logic being that the buyer expects to recover the purchase price over 5–7 years from earnings above overhead. For specialists with higher margins (orthodontists, oral surgeons), the multiple is higher because the same collections yield more take-home income.

DSOs have largely moved away from raw collections multiples because they normalize EBITDA first. But collections multiples remain a useful sanity check — particularly for individual-buyer deals that will be SBA-financed.

2. EBITDA multiple

EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) is the dominant metric for DSO acquisitions. The key is normalization: DSO buyers restate EBITDA by replacing the owner's actual pay with a market-rate clinical compensation figure ($180K–$260K for a full-time general dentist), then apply a multiple to that number.

Source: FOCUS Bankers 2026 dental EBITDA report; Sorso dental M&A data.¹

3. What really moves the multiple

Tax treatment on a dental practice sale

Most dental practice sales are asset sales (not stock sales), meaning each asset class is taxed based on its nature.² The allocation matters enormously:

• Personal goodwill — taxed at long-term capital gains rates (20% federal + 3.8% NIIT for high-income dentists = 23.8% max).³ This is the lowest-tax component and why personal goodwill strategy (allocating more of the purchase price here) is valuable.
• Practice/enterprise goodwill — also capital gains, but the buyer gets a 15-year IRC §197 amortization benefit. Negotiating whether goodwill is "personal" vs. "enterprise" can save you a meaningful amount at the state level in some jurisdictions.
• Equipment and fixtures — ordinary income tax rates apply to the depreciation recapture (§1245). The buyer benefits from bonus depreciation on fully-depreciated equipment, but that benefit flows to them, not you.
• Non-compete payments — ordinary income rates. DSO buyers often push for large non-compete allocations; you want them minimized.

In 2026, the 20% LTCG rate applies for MFJ filers with income above $613,700 (adjusted for inflation by IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32).⁴ In the sale year, your practice income plus capital gain will very likely push you into this bracket. NIIT (3.8%) applies to investment income — including goodwill gain — above $250,000 MFJ / $200,000 single.³

Planning timeline: 2–3 years before a sale

The decisions you make now have an outsized impact on value at exit. A practice owner planning to sell in 3 years should:

1. Grow EBITDA, not just collections. DSOs pay on EBITDA multiples, so every dollar of overhead reduction is worth 5–8 dollars in exit proceeds.
2. Document personal goodwill. A tax attorney can draft contemporaneous documentation establishing that your patient relationships are personal in nature — this shifts allocation toward the lower-tax goodwill bucket.
3. Resolve lease risk. If your lease expires within 5 years of your target sale date, negotiate an extension now. Buyers pay less (or walk) when lease optionality is short.
4. Build associate clinical capacity. A practice running with associates signals enterprise value over personal-skill value — the opposite of what individual DSO buyers fear.
5. Accelerate equipment expensing. Under OBBBA, 100% bonus depreciation is permanent.⁵ Buying and expensing equipment in the 2–3 years before a sale shields ordinary income now. The buyer can re-depreciate after acquisition.