The General Dental Council has said that the 3.15% increase in its annual retention fee from next year is necessary to fund the growth in the number of fitness-to-practise claims.
The new fee for dentists will be set at £721 in 2027/28 – an increase from the £698 they are paying this year - while dental care professionals will pay £111.
The GDC said that the increase is 'driven by the year-on-year growth in the number of fitness-to-practise concerns', adding that it will be used to 'invest in the necessary additional resources to deal with the immediate demands on FtP and start work on longer-term improvements'.
It also claimed that the rise is keeping in line with inflation, although this followed the Government's recommendation that dentists should receive a 2.4% rise to cover increased costs.
The BDA said although the rise was 'modest', it is still another 'unwelcome bill' to be absorbed by the profession.
Earlier this year, an analysis by Cogora – the publishers of GDPUK – revealed that annual fees for GDC registration are 45% and 48% higher than the equivalent charges for GPs and pharmacists respectively and is by a distance the highest among similar professions.
The GDC has previously said that the majority of its members are non-GDPs, and pay much lower fees, but adds that it has fewer professionals on its register yet has similar costs to other regulators.
The regulator made an effort to reduce fees after 2015-2019, when they were at a high of £890 per year. However, they still remain higher than any other regulator. While the GDC had been striving to reduce fees – with a major reduction in 2024 – this year has seen them rise to their highest point since 2019.
Following today's GDC council meeting, where the fees were approved, chair Dr Helen Phillips said: ‘We said last year that any increase would not exceed CPI, and council has kept to that. We don’t underestimate what it means to ask dental professionals to pay more, and council scrutinised the business plan carefully, including its impact on registrants, before setting the fee for 2027.’
She added that the GDC is working on a single programme for fitness to practise, which will ‘further improve the experience for all participants’.
Tom Whiting, chief executive of the GDC, said: ’We have not taken this decision lightly. We know that dental professionals want fitness to practise investigations to be quicker and less stressful, and so do we. We are receiving many more concerns than we did a few years ago and need the right resources in place to deal with them fairly and promptly. The sustained increase in the volume of concerns being received creates a challenging environment which we will need to take further steps to address in future years.
‘We want this investment to make a real difference to people going through the process. We will engage with stakeholders and dental professionals in the months ahead to share more information about the challenges and seek feedback on our approach.’
However, BDA chair Eddie Crouch said: 'This may be a modest increase, but it is another unwelcome bill for a profession already facing soaring costs and unprecedented financial pressures.
'Dentists are being asked to pay more to a regulator that is still in the process of demonstrating it delivers value for money.
'The GDC needs to show the same restraint it expects from the professionals who fund it.'
An freedom of information request from GDPUK earlier this year revealed that fitness-to-practise investigations are dragging on for up to nine years, which experts said was placing ‘extraordinary’ strain on dental professionals.
Figures from the GDC showed that one investigation that finally concluded in 2025 had gone on for total of 474 weeks, or nine years and one month.
Meanwhile, a separate GDPUK FOI found that the GDC has spent almost £400,000 on its credit card expenses accounts since 2023, which includes general sustenance but also some more upmarket restaurant meals and hotels, as well as team-building days.
The cards are mainly funded through the registration fees of dental professionals and according to the GDC’s policy, they are only meant to be used for official business and on items which are ‘value for money.’