How Much Does a Tooth Filling Cost?

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What is a tooth filling?

How much does a tooth filling cost?

Are there other or ongoing costs after a tooth filling?

How long will I have to wait for a tooth filling?

What level of health insurance do I need for a tooth filling?

Where can I find and compare health insurance?

Long story short

A tooth filling helps stop tooth decay and keep your teeth intact

It’s a procedure to fill a cavity in your tooth so food and bacteria can’t cause further damage.

How much your cavity filling costs depends on lots of factors

This includes how big the cavity is, where it is, the filling material, and whether you go to a public or private clinic.

Health insurance can help pay for your filling at a private dental clinic

Your policy will need to cover that service, and might only cover certain providers.

What is a tooth filling?

Tooth decay isn’t just an excuse for parents to ration out the goodies from a party bag. It’s often the reason kids and adults alike need a tooth filling. 

A tooth or cavity filling does what it says on the tin. It’s a procedure to fill a hole in a tooth caused by tooth decay or other dental damage. While it doesn’t completely repair the damage, it keeps your chompers structurally sound so they can do what they do best.  

What are tooth fillings made of?

Your dentist will pick the filling material based on things like where in your mouth the affected tooth is, how your teeth bite together, and the size of filling you need.

How much does a tooth filling cost?

A fair few factors can affect how much a filling costs. For instance, the material used is a big factor – as you can imagine, a gold filling is likely to cost more than a standard composite resin tooth filling.

Where the affected tooth is (hopefully still in your mouth!) and whether the filling is simple or complex can also come into play. As with many services, a trickier job tends to attract a higher fee.

Finally, the setting for your procedure is also a factor. Namely, if you attend a public or private dental clinic.

Putting a number on the cost of a tooth filling is trickier than it first appears. But to give you a sense of what to expect, the table shows the average treatment cost for dental fillings in 2023–24 in private settings, including the average amount insurers covered and the average out-of-pocket cost for patients. The item numbers come from the Australian Dental Association and refer to whether the tooth was at the front or back of the patient’s mouth, and how complex the filling was. They’re only for fillings using composite resin or glass-ionomer cement, so it might be worth keeping in mind that other materials, like porcelain and gold, could come with different (and likely higher) average costs. 

How much did dental fillings cost at private clinics in Australia in 2023–24?

Source: Australian Dental Association – The Australian Schedule of Dental Services and Glossary (Thirteenth Edition), p55–56, Private Healthcare Australia – Typical prices of dental care, p1

Are there other or ongoing costs after a tooth filling?

Like all good things, dental fillings don’t last forever. They can get worn down (don’t we all?), become chipped, and discolour. It’s that wear and tear that increases the risk of food and bacteria getting trapped, causing further problems that a filling might not be able to fix. 

Therefore, regular dental check-ups are a smart move. Your dentist can check if your filling is still up to the job, replacing it as needed, along with keeping an eye out for any other problem areas in your mouth. 

Helpful tip

There’s nothing quite like the real thing – and that counts for teeth, too. To minimise your need for further (or any) tooth fillings, regular dental check-ups are a must. Thankfully, private health insurance can give you the incentive to stick to this routine, whether it’s the help in paying the bill or motivation to get your money’s worth out of your premium.  

Whatever the reason, it can mean fewer fillings in your future – seriously, in 2021, Australians without private health insurance had more fillings than Aussies with health insurance.¹Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – Oral health and dental care in Australia

Andres Gutierrez

General Manager – Health

How long will I have to wait for a tooth filling?

If you’re hoping to get a tooth filling at a public dental clinic, you might want more than a book to help you pass the time. The public system can have waits of more than a year. In 2022–23, the median wait from getting added to the public list to the first offer of general dental care ranged from 126 days to a whopping 1,392 days, depending on the state.²Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – Oral health and dental care in Australia: Supplementary tables

The issue with such a long wait for a filling is that the tooth decay can spread. It may become such an issue that a filling isn’t the right fix anymore, and another solution, like a root canal, is needed. 

There can be waits in the private system, too. However, with more private dental clinics around than public ones, you’re unlikely to spend all that long on a waiting list. It’s more about health insurance waiting periods. 

If you intend to use your health insurance to cover some of your tooth filling cost, you’ll need to have served your waiting periods. For extras policies, there aren’t regulated maximum limits for how long these waiting periods can be. But for the kind of cover that includes simple tooth fillings, you typically only have to wait a few months. Sometimes, you might even see dental cover offered with no waiting periods at all. 

What level of health insurance do I need for a tooth filling?

If you’re after health insurance for tooth fillings, you’ll want to look at an extras policy. General dental extras tend to cover simple fillings, while major dental usually takes care of complex fillings. 

With a general dental policy, you’ll likely get cover for other routine dental services, like check-ups and cleans. Major dental can include crowns, veneers, and the like. If you want to nail down what a policy covers, take a look at the policy document. It’ll list what services are covered; these can vary between policies and insurers. 

Where can I find and compare health insurance?

If your toothache is becoming too much of a headache or you’d rather not let it get that far, health insurance can help. And when it comes to health insurance, iSelect is ready to make things simple. With our service, you can compare a range of health insurance policies, including extras options, to find the one that makes you smile. Use our online comparison tool or speak with one of our health insurance comparison experts on 1800 784 772.