Where you live in London can change the price of the same dental treatment by hundreds of pounds. To measure the difference, we analysed the published price lists of 1,278 London dental practices, taken from each practice’s own website. Then we ranked every borough by cost.
Private dental care in Kensington and Chelsea costs about 29% more than the London average. Westminster is 27% above and the City of London 26% above. Newham is 19% below. On a single course of Invisalign, the gap between the cheapest and dearest borough is about £1,000.
These are advertised “from” prices, the lowest price a practice publishes for a treatment. The final cost of your treatment is usually higher and depends on what you need. The figures are most useful for comparing one area with another, which is what this study does.
Figures as of 16 October 2026. In October we found a mistake in our own data. Many practices list the fixed NHS charges (such as £27.90 or £76.60) on their price page, next to their private prices. Our software had saved some of those NHS charges as if they were private prices. That made some private prices look lower than they are. The biggest change is root canal treatment: the London figure is £450, not the £400 we published before. We have taken the NHS charges out and recalculated everything. The order of the boroughs barely moved. Kensington and Chelsea is still the most expensive, and Newham is still the cheapest.
Key findings
- Central London is the most expensive place to see a private dentist. Kensington and Chelsea tops the index at 29% above the London average, followed by Westminster at 27% and the City of London at 26%.
- Newham is the cheapest borough by a clear margin, at 19% below average. Tower Hamlets and Hillingdon are both 10% below, and Ealing is 9% below.
- The same treatment can cost twice as much, or more, depending on the borough. A root canal starts at £300 in Redbridge and £625 in Kensington and Chelsea. A private check-up starts at £35 in Hillingdon and £90 in Westminster.
- The biggest differences are on expensive treatments. Between the cheapest and dearest borough, the gap is £1,195 on a single implant, £1,005 on Invisalign and £465 on dentures.
The London Dental Cost Index
Each borough is scored against the London average, which is set at 100, across 10 common treatments. A score of 110 means treatment there is typically 10% more expensive than the London average. A score of 90 means 10% cheaper.
| Rank | Borough | Cost index (London = 100) | vs London average |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kensington and Chelsea | 129 | +29% |
| 2 | Westminster | 127 | +27% |
| 3 | City of London | 126 | +26% |
| 4 | Waltham Forest | 110 | +10% |
| 5 | Haringey | 106 | +6% |
| 6 | Islington | 106 | +6% |
| 7 | Greenwich | 105 | +5% |
| 8 | Southwark | 105 | +5% |
| 9 | Lambeth | 103 | +3% |
| 10 | Richmond upon Thames | 103 | +3% |
| 11 | Bromley | 102 | +2% |
| 12 | Camden | 102 | +2% |
| 13 | Croydon | 102 | +2% |
| 14 | Hammersmith and Fulham | 102 | +2% |
| 15 | Hounslow | 102 | +2% |
| 16 | Enfield | 101 | +1% |
| 17 | Hackney | 101 | +1% |
| 18 | Harrow | 101 | +1% |
| 19 | Havering | 101 | +1% |
| 20 | Sutton | 101 | +1% |
| 21 | Barnet | 100 | average |
| 22 | Lewisham | 99 | -1% |
| 23 | Merton | 99 | -1% |
| 24 | Kingston upon Thames | 98 | -2% |
| 25 | Bexley | 94 | -6% |
| 26 | Wandsworth | 94 | -6% |
| 27 | Redbridge | 93 | -7% |
| 28 | Brent | 91 | -9% |
| 29 | Ealing | 91 | -9% |
| 30 | Hillingdon | 90 | -10% |
| 31 | Tower Hamlets | 90 | -10% |
| 32 | Newham | 81 | -19% |
What dental treatment typically costs in London
These are the typical advertised starting prices across London. The typical range is the middle half of practices: a quarter start below it and a quarter above.
| Treatment | Typical price | Typical range | Practices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single dental implant | £2,100 | £1,700-£2,800 | 288 |
| Invisalign | £2,500 | £1,890-£3,300 | 751 |
| Teeth whitening | £375 | £300-£440 | 943 |
| Veneers (per tooth) | £325 | £225-£650 | 946 |
| Root canal | £450 | £295-£650 | 686 |
| Dentures (from) | £600 | £380-£825 | 791 |
| Simple tooth extraction | £180 | £120-£250 | 156 |
| Gum treatment | £150 | £110-£195 | 543 |
| Hygienist (scale & polish) | £75 | £65-£95 | 884 |
| Private check-up | £55 | £40-£75 | 609 |
NHS treatment costs the same in every borough. It is charged in 3 fixed national bands: £27.90, £76.60 or £332.10 in 2026/27. Our NHS dental charges guide explains what each band covers, and our NHS dentist in London guide explains how to find a practice.
Same treatment, very different price
The borough matters most for expensive treatments, where a small percentage is a lot of money. Here is the cheapest and dearest borough for each treatment, among the 32 boroughs in the index. The number in brackets is how many practices the figure comes from. A median from 5 practices is less reliable than one from 100.
| Treatment | Cheapest borough | Dearest borough | You could save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single dental implant | Camden, £1,800 (11) | City of London, £2,995 (5) | £1,195 |
| Invisalign | Newham, £1,995 (8) | Harrow, £3,000 (24) | £1,005 |
| Dentures (from) | Ealing, £385 (32) | Hammersmith and Fulham, £850 (28) | £465 |
| Root canal | Redbridge, £300 (19) | Kensington and Chelsea, £625 (26) | £325 |
| Simple tooth extraction | Croydon, £90 (5) | Kensington and Chelsea, £320 (12) | £230 |
| Veneers (per tooth) | Harrow, £250 (33) | Greenwich, £450 (28) | £200 |
| Teeth whitening | Newham, £275 (13) | Westminster, £450 (104) | £175 |
| Gum treatment | Sutton, £95 (5) | Kensington and Chelsea, £220 (16) | £125 |
| Hygienist (scale & polish) | Harrow, £65 (30) | City of London, £125 (21) | £60 |
| Private check-up | Hillingdon, £35 (12) | Westminster, £90 (74) | £55 |
Invisalign at a typical Harrow practice starts at £3,000. In Newham it starts at £1,995. A single implant starts at £1,800 in Camden and £2,995 in the City of London. A cheaper practice is not necessarily a worse one. Prices also reflect local rents, the kind of practice, and the patients it serves.
Central versus outer London
The 3 central boroughs are the most expensive by a wide margin: Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster and the City of London. The cheapest boroughs are in the east and west: Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hillingdon and Ealing. On average, a Kensington and Chelsea practice charges about 60% more than a Newham practice for the same work.
Waltham Forest does not fit the pattern. It is an outer London borough, but it is fourth on the index, at 10% above average.
If you live near a borough boundary, you can save real money. For planned, expensive treatment such as implants, Invisalign or dentures, it can be worth going to a practice in the next borough. You can still have routine check-ups near home.
How we did it
This study uses published “from” prices collected from the websites of CQC-registered dental practices across London. These are the same prices shown on our practice listings. 1,278 practices published at least one private price.
For each practice we take its lowest advertised price for each treatment. Borough and London figures are the median of those per-practice prices. For implants we count single-tooth prices only, excluding full-arch work such as All-on-4, which runs into five figures and would distort the median. Extraction figures cover simple extractions, excluding surgical and wisdom-tooth removal. We leave out any price that exactly matches an NHS band charge, because those are NHS fees, not private prices.
A borough is ranked for a treatment only where at least 5 practices publish a price. A borough needs prices for at least 6 of the 10 treatments to enter the index. On that basis 32 of London’s 33 boroughs qualify. Barking and Dagenham has too few published prices to include. All figures are rounded to the nearest £5.
The analysis runs from a script in our own codebase (scripts/cost_index.py), so we can reproduce, check and re-run it when the data is refreshed. These are advertised starting prices, not quotes. Always confirm the full cost with the practice.
Cite this study
Journalists and researchers are welcome to use these figures with attribution to Dentist-London.com, linking to this page (https://dentist-london.com/advice/london-dental-cost-index/). For the underlying borough-by-borough dataset, the chart as a file, or a comment, get in touch via our contact page.
Related guides
- How much does a dentist cost in London? - every treatment, NHS and private
- Dental implants in London and Invisalign in London
- Find a dentist in your borough
- NHS dentists in London - how to find a practice taking NHS patients
- London dental price list - current median prices for every treatment