Sources and method

Pay figures

Every wage on this site is from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 survey for dental hygienists (occupation code 29-1292), all industries, read from the BLS OEWS query tool on 2026-10-29. OEWS is a survey of employers, published each spring for the previous May. It covers the nation, each state and DC, and 521 metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas; 508 of those areas have a published dental hygienist median and a page here.

Annual wages are BLS's hourly rate multiplied by 2,080 hours. BLS withholds estimates that do not meet its publication standards; where it did, the page says "Not published" and we leave the figure out rather than estimate it. Percent differences between areas are computed from the published medians.

A metro area figure covers the whole metro as BLS defines it, including parts in a neighboring state. A nonmetropolitan area groups the rural counties of part of a state.

License guides

License guides are drawn from state dental board pages and state statutes and rules. Each item names the page it came from and the date it was checked, and an item is published only if the passage it rests on was found on that page when checked. States without a guide are ones we have not finished.

Who runs this site

Hygienist Pay is operated by Voll Group LLC. Hiring requests and hygienist sign-ups are passed to dental staffing services, recruiters and offices; see the privacy policy and terms of use.