Registration with the General Dental Council

All dentists who work in the UK are registered with the General Dental Council (GDC).

Details and requirements of eligibility for registration must be obtained direct from the GDC. A summary of the different types of registration is provided below. Registration may be full or temporary.

Full Registration

Allows a dentist to practise dentistry in the UK, providing the dentist has the correct visa/immigration status.  Having Full Registration does not entitle you to a job in the UK, and does not entitle you to work as a performer in NHS general practice.

Temporary Registration

Allows a dentist to practise dentistry only in selected supervised posts for training, teaching or research purposes. The maximum length of time you can have temporary registration is limited to 1826 days. Temporary Registration is not granted for periods of less than 180 days.

You will need to find out if the GDC recognises your degree for the purposes of temporary registration. You can find this out by checking the list of recognised universities for temporary registration. This list is available by country on the GDC website.

Temporary registration is normally granted for the purpose of postgraduate training, research or teaching in relation to a specific appointment. If an overseas-qualified dentist writes to the GDC to enquire about registration in the UK, the letter from the GDC may state that the person would be eligible for temporary registration providing their papers are in order.

It is important to understand that although you may be eligible for temporary registration, you will not obtain temporary registration until you are successful in obtaining the offer of a post. You cannot work on temporary registration in general or private practice or in community dental service.

It is also important to understand that, with effect from 1 August 2013, unless you are an exempt person (see GDC guidance), you are required to submit a single IELTS academic test report which must not be more than two years old and show an overall band score of 7.0 and no lower than 6.5 in any section.

Specialist lists

The GDC is the sole competent authority in the UK for the dental specialties. The GDC has responsibility for standards of education and training. The GDC also maintains the UK specialist lists. These can be accessed via the GDC web site or by e-mailing specialist@gdc_uk.org.

The specialist list includes: oral surgery, endodontics, peridontics, prosthodontics, restorative dentistry, dental public health, orthodontics, paediatric, dentistry, oral medicine, oral pathology, dental and maxillofacial radiology, special care dentistry.

Oral and maxillofacial surgery is a medical specialty and requires dual registration both with the GMC and GDC.