Debt Free Dr

To help other dentists obtain financial independence within 5-7 years by investing in passive real estate investments.

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Most dentists retire around age 68.7, according to the latest data from the ADA Health Policy Institute. That’s nearly seven years later than the average American, who steps away around 62, and the number has been climbing for over two decades.

In this article, I’ll show you why the average retirement age for dentists keeps rising, what the numbers say about how long you’ll actually be in the chair, and how I’m using passive income to make sure my body isn’t the one that decides when I’m done.

When Do Dentists Retire?

The American Dental Association Health Policy Institute tracks retirement patterns across the entire dental workforce, and the trend is hard to ignore.

In 2024, the average age of retirement among U.S. dentists was 68.7, up from 64.7 in 2001. That means the average dentist gained four extra working years in about two decades, and career spans stretched right along with it, from 37.8 years in 2001 to 41.3 years today.

Here’s the part that got my attention. Only 21% of dentists retire before 65, and a full 20% are 75 or older when they finally hang it up. One in five of us is still leaning over patients past 75.

How Has the Average Retirement Age Changed?

Here’s a quick cheat sheet on the numbers:

Numbers like these don’t happen by accident. Something is keeping dental professionals in the operatory longer, and it’s usually not because they love it more than everyone else loves their job.

Why Do Dentists Retire Later Than the Average American?

The short answer is that we start the wealth building race about a decade behind everyone else, and most of us never make up the ground.

Think about your neighbor who went straight into a sales job at 22. By the time you walked out of dental school (and maybe a residency after that), he’d already had eight to ten years of income, retirement contributions, and compound growth working for him. You started your career in a hole.

How Do Student Loans Push Retirement Back?

The average dental school graduate today carries somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000 in student loan debt, and I know that hole personally because I climbed out of one.

I came out of my periodontics residency in 2005 with about $300,000 in student loans, a two month old at home, and a practice deal that fell through at the last minute. I followed Dave Ramsey, kept expenses low, and paid off the loans and our first house. And I’m still glad I did.

But here’s what those loan years cost. Money going to student loans in your 30s is money that never gets to compound. Let’s say you’re sending $3,000 a month to loans instead of retirement savings for ten years. At an average market return, that’s roughly $500,000 you don’t have at 65, and missing money translates directly into working longer.

Does Owning a Dental Practice Delay Retirement?

Dental practice owners tend to retire even later than associates, which sounds backwards until you look at where their net worth actually lives.

When you own your own dental practice, a huge slice of your wealth is locked inside it (the equipment, the building, the goodwill), and none of it pays your bills until you sell. Add practice loans on top of student loans, and serious retirement savings often gets pushed into your 40s.

There’s an emotional piece too. It’s hard to walk away from something you built with your own hands, and I understand that because I built mine from scratch, renting space from another specialist and working afternoons at a denture clinic to pay the bills. Nobody wants to hand that over a day earlier than they have to.

What Happens When Your Body Retires Before You Do?

Here’s the question the retirement calculators never ask, and it’s the one that changed my entire financial plan.

Around age 40, my life was on cruise control. Good income, debt free, practice humming along. Then I sprained my wrist on a ski trip, and sitting there with that wrist wrapped up, it hit me that every dollar I’d ever earned came through my hands. If I couldn’t hold a scalpel, the income stopped. All of it.

I got lucky. A sprained wrist heals. But necks, backs, shoulders, and eyes don’t always cooperate on your timeline, and dentistry is brutal on all of them. You can have a healthy retirement fund on paper and still get forced out of active practice years before your target retirement age because your personal health decided for you.

That’s the real problem with planning around the average age of retirement. The average assumes your body shows up for the whole 41-year career span, and plenty of bodies don’t.

What’s the Difference Between Financial Independence and Retirement?

This distinction is the whole ballgame, and it’s the thing traditional retirement planning almost never explains.

Retirement means you stop working. Financial independence means your investments and passive income cover your living expenses whether you work or not. You can reach financial independence at 50 and keep practicing into your 60s because you enjoy it, and that’s a completely different life than practicing at 68 because you have no other option.

I call it work optional, and getting there is the entire point of the 7 WOW Steps I teach inside the Passive Investors Circle.

How Do You Find Your Freedom Number?

Your Freedom Number is simply your monthly expenses times 1.1, and it’s the clearest target you’ll ever set.

Let’s say your family spends $15,000 a month. Multiply by 1.1, and your Freedom Number is $16,500 a month. The day your passive income crosses that line, work becomes optional, and every financial decision you make gets easier because you know exactly what you’re aiming at.

Notice what’s missing from that math. There’s no age in it. Your Freedom Number doesn’t care if you’re 45 or 65, and that’s exactly why I like it better than a target retirement age.

What Retirement Accounts Should Dentists Use?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the traditional tools. Max them out.

Dentists have access to retirement accounts most high earners would love. Beyond the standard 401k, dental practice owners can layer on a profit sharing plan, and a cash balance retirement plan can push total tax advantaged contributions past $150,000 a year during peak earning years. That’s a serious reduction in taxable income, and a good financial advisor or dental CPA can help you structure it without straining practice cash flow.

Here’s my issue. Every one of those accounts follows the same script: lock money away until your 60s, then hope the market cooperates. They build a comfortable retirement, but they don’t build income you can live on at 48 if your back gives out at 47.

What About Income Outside the Practice?

This is the gap I found after the ski trip, and filling it became my second career.

After reading everything I could get my hands on, I started investing in real estate syndications as a passive investor, and today my business partner and I also own mobile home parks ourselves. So I’ve sat on both sides of the table, the doctor writing the check and the operator running the deal.

Here’s a kitchen table example of how it works. Say you invest $100,000 in a syndication paying 7% annual cash flow. That’s about $583 a month showing up whether you saw patients that day or not. It won’t hit your Freedom Number by itself, but stack a few of those over ten years while you’re still practicing, and you’ve built an income stream that doesn’t depend on your hands. Many of these deals also pass through depreciation that can shelter that income, which I break down in my article on how K-1 losses affect your taxes.

Can You Count on the Practice Sale to Fund Retirement?

A lot of dentists treat the practice sale as the retirement plan, and that’s a risky bet to place on one transaction.

Potential buyers have to materialize, agree to your valuation, and secure financing, and any one of those can add years to your timeline. I’ve watched colleagues plan to sell at 65 and still be drilling at 68 because a deal fell apart. And many sales require you to stay on for a transition period anyway, so the sale date and your last day in the chair are rarely the same day.

The practice sale should be the bonus check, not the plan. If your retirement income works without it, then whatever the sale brings simply makes life sweeter.

Bottom Line

So when do dentists retire? Around 68.7 on average, later than almost any other profession, and one in five of us works past 75. The trend has moved in the wrong direction for twenty years.

The reasons are real: dental school debt, practice loans, wealth locked inside the practice, and a late start on compounding. But the biggest reason is that most of us were handed a plan with only one income stream in it, and that stream runs through our hands.

I’m not planning around a retirement age anymore. I’m planning around my Freedom Number, and every passive income stream I add moves the decision from my body’s hands back into mine.

If you want to see how other doctors and dentists are building income outside the operatory, come join the Passive Investors Circle. It’s free, and it’s where I share what’s actually working in my own portfolio each month.

This is not financial or tax advice. Always consult your own financial advisor or CPA before making any investment decisions.