CDCP Fee Guide 2026: What the Plan Actually Pays

What the CDCP pays, and what you can still be billed

Every guide to the CDCP repeats the same three percentages — 100%, 60%, 40% by income tier. Almost none of them tell you what those percentages apply to, which is the only thing that determines what leaves your bank account.

They apply to the CDCP established fee: a fixed dollar amount, per procedure code, set out in the benefit grid for your province. If your dentist charges more than that amount, the difference is yours. This is legal, common, and it applies at every tier — including the tier where the plan pays 100%.

Alberta is the one province where this gap can be measured without estimating anything, because it is the only province whose dental association publishes a suggested fee guide for the public. Matching the two documents code by code, at the same 2025 vintage:

Across the seven procedures we could match, the Alberta suggested fee sat 6.6% above the CDCP established fee on average. That is considerably less alarming than the framing you will find on clinic blogs — but it is not nothing: on a simple extraction it reaches 15.1%, and on a complete denture it is $98.12 per arch before laboratory fees.

The most useful finding is the one nobody publishes because it cuts against the narrative: on a three-canal molar root canal, the gap is zero. The CDCP established fee and the Alberta suggested fee are both $1,296.32, identical to the cent. "The CDCP underpays" is not a rule. It varies by procedure, and you can check which.

Estimate what you would owe

The same procedure, a different fee in each province

The CDCP does not pay one national rate. The grids broadly follow provincial fee levels, so the same procedure code is reimbursed at very different amounts depending on where you live.

The recall exam is the clearest illustration: $73.85 in Alberta against $33.71 in British Columbia — more than double, for the identical procedure code, on the same 2025 grids. Alberta has the highest dental fees in Canada and its CDCP grid reflects that.

One caution on reading this table: the Ontario column is the 2024 grid, because the 2025 Ontario general-dentist grid could not be retrieved from the public archive at the time of writing. Comparing Ontario to Alberta here compares two different benefit years. We would rather show the vintage than quietly present a mismatched comparison as a ranking.

Why there is no single "CDCP fee guide"

Searching for the CDCP fee guide is the source of most of the confusion, because the document does not exist in the singular. What exists is:

• The Dental Benefits Guide, published by the Government of Canada. This sets out policies, definitions, frequency limits and pre-authorization rules. It contains no dollar amounts.
• The CDCP Dental Benefit Grids, published by Sun Life as the plan administrator. These contain the amounts. There is one grid per province or territory, and within each, a separate grid for general dentists and specialists, dental hygienists, denturists, and oral and maxillofacial surgeons — in English and in French.

That is roughly fifty separate PDFs, each revised annually with effect from April 1. A patient looking up what their crown will be reimbursed at has to know their province, their provider's category, and the benefit year before they can even open the right file.

How to read a benefit grid

Each row of a grid is a procedure code from the standard Canadian dental code set, followed by the fee payable to each provider category. The first monetary column is the general dentist rate — the one that applies to most patients. Further columns give specialist rates, which apply only when the procedure falls within that specialist's field.

Two markers change the amount you will actually be quoted:

• "L" means the grid allows a separate commercial laboratory fee on top of the listed professional fee. It appears on crowns, dentures and partials. The listed amount is therefore not the whole reimbursement, and not the whole bill.
• "P", or placement in Schedule B, means the procedure requires pre-authorization before treatment. Proceeding without it is the most common reason a claim is refused outright.

What the grid does not price

A good deal of the frustration with the fee guide comes from looking up a procedure and not finding it. Three cases are worth separating, because they are not the same problem.

It is in the grid, but conditionally. Sedation is the clearest example. The general dentist grid carries a full anaesthesia section — nitrous oxide, oral sedation, and combinations — priced in time units from $55.62 for the first unit on the Alberta 2025 grid. But payment is gated on the plan's separate sedation policy being met, so its presence in the grid is not by itself a guarantee of reimbursement. If sedation is part of your treatment plan, see what sedation dentistry costs in Canada for the private-pay range you would face if the policy conditions are not met.

It is not in the grid because it is excluded. Night guards and other mouth appliances do not appear anywhere in the benefit grid, because they are an absolute exclusion of the plan rather than an omission. No income tier and no clinical circumstance changes that — the cost is yours in full. The Canadian night guard cost range is the number that actually applies to you.

It is not in the grid because of what it is attached to. Bone grafting is most often performed to prepare a site for an implant, and implants together with implant-related procedures are an absolute exclusion. A graft done in that context therefore falls outside the plan entirely, which surprises people who assume a graft is simply oral surgery.

The general rule: the grid prices what the plan has decided to cover. Not finding a procedure is usually an answer, not a gap in the document.

What this means before you sit in the chair

The practical move is not to memorise a grid. It is to ask two questions before treatment, using the procedure code:

1. "What code will you be billing, and what is your fee for it?" Every quote should be expressible in codes. If it cannot be, it cannot be checked.
2. "Do you accept assignment at the CDCP fee, or will you balance bill?" A dentist who bills at the grid amount leaves you owing only your tier's share. A dentist who bills above it leaves you owing that share plus the difference.

The gap is usually modest — single-digit percentages on routine work. It becomes material on the expensive, laboratory-based procedures, which are exactly the ones where people are least likely to ask.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

Sources and method

The CDCP amounts on this page are read from the official CDCP Dental Benefit Grid — General Practitioners and Specialists published by Sun Life as administrator of the plan, in the general dentist column. The Alberta suggested fees are read from the Abbreviated Suggested Fee Guide for General Dentists published by the Alberta Dental Association for the public; the complete guide is available to its members only, so the public comparison is limited to the codes the abbreviated edition contains.

Every figure is extracted from the source PDFs by script rather than transcribed by hand, and each row carries its own benefit year. Procedure codes and dollar amounts are reproduced as facts; the descriptive wording in those documents is not reproduced, and procedure labels here are our own. We do not re-host either publisher's PDF.

Comparisons are only made within a single province and a single vintage. Where a vintage could not be matched — Ontario 2025 — the table states the year rather than substituting a nearer one.

This page provides pricing and market research information, NOT medical or dental advice. Real Dental Costs is an independent data publisher and is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, Sun Life Financial, or the Alberta Dental Association. Fee grids are revised annually on April 1 — always confirm the current amounts with your provider and with Sun Life before treatment.