When staying home is cheaper
This page argues against the thing the rest of this site is about. It exists because a price comparison that only ever points one way is an advert, and because in these five situations the numbers genuinely go the other way.
1. A single crown, filling or extraction
A zirconia crown is £800 in the UK and £200 in Turkey — a saving of £600. Two return flights and the nights needed for the two appointments a crown requires cost £600 to £900.
The trip costs more than it saves. The same is true of fillings, single extractions and hygiene work. It starts to change at three or four units, and it changes decisively on full-arch cases.
2. Orthodontics
Braces and aligners need adjustment every four to eight weeks over eighteen months to three years. That is fifteen to thirty appointments.
No saving on the appliance survives thirty return flights. Clear aligners can be posted, but the monitoring still has to happen somewhere, and a treatment that goes wrong halfway through needs a clinician who can see you next week rather than next quarter. Orthodontics is the one major treatment category where travelling makes no financial sense at any scale.
3. When your system covers it in full
This is the case that catches the most people, because they never check.
| Country | What is fully covered | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 🇫🇷France | 100% Santé. A defined basket of crowns, bridges and dentures, fully covered by Assurance Maladie plus your mutuelle. | Reste à charge zero. Travelling for these acts is financially pointless. |
| 🇩🇪Germany | Härtefallregelung. Below the income threshold the fund covers up to 100% of the Regelversorgung. | Qualify, and treatment abroad costs you the full price plus travel. |
| 🇬🇧United Kingdom | NHS Band 3, £332.10 for a whole course including crowns, dentures and bridges — free if you are exempt. | Cheaper than any destination on this site. The obstacle is access, not price. |
| 🇳🇴Norway | Stønadspunkt 15. For a completely toothless lower jaw where a loose denture cannot be worn, Helfo supports two implants and an overdenture. | The one implant scenario Helfo actually pays for. Check before assuming you must go abroad. |
Check entitlement before comparing prices, not after. The order matters: a treatment that is free at home cannot be beaten by any discount.
4. When your subsidy is proportional
The subsidy does not shrink when the bill does — so you keep more of a cheaper bill.
The subsidy is a share of the bill — so a cheaper bill means a smaller subsidy.
Paid only if your diagnosis qualifies. Most routine work does not.
No dental cover at all. The whole price gap is yours.
Sweden reimburses half of costs between 3,000 and 15,000 kronor and 85% above that — a share of the actual bill. Make the bill smaller and the subsidy shrinks with it.
On a full-mouth case the gross gap against Hungary is around 260,000 kronor. After the högkostnadsskydd the real saving is nearer 39,000, and two trips take a bite out of that. On a single implant it is close to break-even before travel is counted at all.
The Netherlands has a version of the same problem: an annual ceiling on the supplementary policy that is reached whether you travel or not, so the reimbursement changes nothing about the comparison. The full ten-market comparison →
5. Fixing something that has already failed
If a crown chips or an implant fails after you get home, a local dentist charges full private rates to work on a restoration they did not place — commonly £2,000 to £3,000 for removing a failed fixture, grafting and starting again. Some practices decline the work entirely.
Claiming on the clinic's warranty means flying back, which is another £300 to £600 and more time off. Whichever route you take, remedial work is the one job where the original saving has already been spent.
This is not an argument against treatment abroad — failure rates at competent clinics are similar everywhere, and ten-year implant survival is generally reported around 95%. It is an argument for choosing a case large enough that the saving can absorb the possibility.
So when does it work?
Everything above is a boundary, not a verdict. Travelling makes clear financial sense when three things hold at once:
- The case is large. Three or more implants, or full-arch work. Travel is a flat cost and the per-tooth discount multiplies against it.
- Your system pays little or nothing at home. Switzerland is the extreme — basic insurance excludes dental entirely, so the whole gap is yours. The UK is the practical one, where implants are effectively unavailable on the NHS.
- You have arranged follow-up before you go. A UK dentist who has agreed in advance to monitor the work, and a written warranty stating what it covers.
Where all three hold, the difference runs into five figures and the arithmetic is not close. Where none hold, stay home. Work out your own number →
Related
- Does your subsidy survive the trip?
- If you are on benefits, the trip has a second cost
- If you can't afford a dentist (UK)
- Is treatment abroad safe?
Official sources
We are not one of these. Check anything on this page against them before you act on it.
- NHS England NHS — dental charges Current Band 1, 2 and 3 charges
- GDC General Dental Council register Check any UK dentist's registration
- Care Quality Commission Dental services guidance Regulatory standards for UK practices
- European Commission Cross-border healthcare directive Directive 2011/24/EU and national contact points