Number of dental clinics Japan 2024, by founder

As of January 2024, the number of dental clinics founded by private individuals in Japan amounted to around 50 thousand facilities. This accounted for roughly 74 percent of the approximately 67 thousand dental clinics available in the country. 

Dental facilities throughout the country

In recent years, the annual numbers of newly opened and newly closed dental clinics in Japan have been quite similar to each other, resulting in a rather consistent number of dental institutions overall across the country. As of 2019, prefectures with huge metropolitan areas such as Tokyo Prefecture, Osaka Prefecture, and Kanagawa Prefecture, home to Japan’s second-largest city Yokohama, recorded the highest numbers of operating dental clinics. The total number of registered dentists in Japan has risen throughout the past two decades and there have continuously been more than 100 thousand operating dentists in the country since 2010.

Different founders of dental clinics

Since the Medical Law came into effect in 1948, medical institutions, including hospitals or dental clinics, can appeal to a local governor to become a medical corporation and operate as a non-profit organization. The number of medical corporations active in Japan has been steadily growing and exceeded 50 thousand in 2015. Dental clinics owned by medical corporations reached around 16.8 thousand, making up over 25 percent of total dental clinics in the country. In addition to standalone dental clinics such as private ones or those founded by medical corporations, there are over 1,000 general hospitals with dentistry departments available for the Japanese nation.