Frequently Asked Questions

After completing the Equivalency Process, eligibility to register will be in your current profile

The NDEB does not have residency requirements for participation in NDEB examinations.

Which pathway you follow will depend on if you want to be certified as a dentist or dental specialist and if you have graduated from and accredited or non-accredited dental program. Visit How to Become a Dentist in Canada and answer a few short questions to determine which pathway you should follow.

If your country is not on the list, you must send us all pertaining information on your program and university, with links when applicable. The NDEB will confirm your eligibility to apply to the Equivalency Process within a few weeks.

The NDEB cannot provide assistance in obtaining visas or other documents required for travel for the purposes of participating in the examinations.

If you need to change your name with the NDEB, you must submit a Request for Name Change Form and the documents listed on the form to the NDEB office by mail or courier.

The length of time it takes to complete the Equivalency Process will vary depending on the individual. The first step is application and credential verification. If everything is submitted correctly the first time this takes approximately 18 weeks. Then there are three examinations to complete. How long it takes to complete the examinations depends on when a person can register for an examination and how many attempts it takes them to pass the examination.

For information on accredited dental programs in the United States, visit the CODA website.

There is no reciprocity between the Australian Dental Council and the NDEB. You must complete the NDEB Equivalency Process in order to participate in the Certification Process.

Yes, if you successfully complete a Degree Completion program at a Canadian faculty of Dentistry, you will receive a degree from an accredited university and complete the process for graduates of accredited dental programs.

Exam fees are established independently for each exam with the objective of being fair and reasonable. They are determined based on exam-specific costs including exam development, costs to administer exams, and overhead. Overhead costs are allocated to exams based on time and effort required to support each exam. Individual exam fees are not intended to subsidize other exams. The fees are reviewed annually and adjusted, as necessary.

Tax receipts are generated annually and can be obtained through the “miscellaneous” tab of your NDEBConnect account.

The fee for the Virtual OSCE is $2000.00.

If you have passed one of the current certification examinations but have not passed the other by the time the Virtual OSCE is implemented, you will be required to pass the Virtual OSCE to be certified.

The Virtual OSCE can be taken a maximum of three times.

No, a candidate who needs to repeat the Written Examination and/or OSCE will not have three attempts at the Virtual OSCE. The attempts at existing certification examinations are counted as part of the maximum number of times a person can take the Virtual OSCE.

The NDEB does not place limits on the number of certificates that can be issued. The number of certified individuals is based on the number of candidates who have fulfilled the requirements for certification.

The process of certification varies depending on what pathway an individual takes. From the time an individual is eligible to take the certification exams it can take between 6-18 months. The timeframe varies based on how many times the individual is required to take the examinations to pass. The certification examinations can be taken three times.

No, you must apply for a license with the Dental Regulatory Authorities (DRAs) in the province where you want to practice. The DRA may require additional documentation, jurisprudence tests, and evidence of language proficiency prior to licensure.

The Virtual OSCE can be taken four months before months before graduation. Your expected date of graduation will be confirmed with your university prior to taking the examinations.

If you graduated from an accredited dental program more than five years (60 months) ago, you must apply for Special Consideration to be a candidate. You can download the Special Consideration Application Form from the Application Guide. The form explains the document requirements for Special Consideration Applications.

The NDECC test centre will be equipped with the 700 series typodont as of September 30, 2024.

As with all materials and supplies for the NDECC, the NDEB updates what is provided to remain current with what may be used in Canadian dental programs.

Each examinee is not provided their own amalgamator. You will be allowed to use the amalgamators with gloves.

The NDECC consists of two components, the Clinicals Skills component and the Situational Judgement component. If you fail both components you must repeat the full NDECC. However, if you fail one component you are only required to repeat the failed component.

When you register for an NDECC™ session you will be informed of when your work will be evaluated. There are currently four evaluation session planned per year. The number of weeks between your examination and the evaluation will depend on the schedule.

There is no limit on the amount of material that is supplied. At the beginning of the day, your kit will include what an average candidate would use during an NDECC™ examination. Should you need additional supply, you will be able to request them to attending NDEB® staff members.

There are several electrical outlets available to charge your battery packs.

During our tests, we determined that the fine and medium diamond burs were inefficient and caused burning of the plastic teeth. The NDEB will therefore be only providing coarse and extra coarse diamonds. There will however be a friction grip low speed handpiece available should you wish to use the coarse burs on a slowspeed handpiece.

The NDEB will not answer questions about preparation design. It is the responsibility of a competent dentist to know how much reduction and what preparation and margin designs need to be achieved for specific teeth and various restorative materials.

The exam will be held at the NDECC^® Test Centre located at 340 Albert Street, 12^th Floor, Ottawa, ON.

The Test Centre is located:

• Near the Starbucks on Albert and Kent Street
• A 4 minute walk from the O-Train Lyon Station
• 4 km from the Ottawa train station
• 11 km from the Ottawa airport

At the Test Centre, you will have access to an examinee locker room, examinee lounge including kitchen, an examinee private room for prayer, breastfeeding, meditation, etc., washrooms, a classroom, situational judgement rooms, and the simulation clinic.

You should wear comfortable professional streetwear. A disposable surgical gown to wear on top of your clothes will be provided. Closed toed shoes with socks must be worn. For the health and comfort of examinees and staff the Test Centre is a scent free environment. We request that you avoid scented products such as cologne, aftershave, perfume, and scented lotion. The use of scented deodorant is permitted.

The Test Centre will be equipped with A-dec simulators and Kilgore International, Inc. Darwin heads.

The handpieces used in the Test Centre will be Kavo handpieces. The handpieces are air driven.

You will be provided with all the necessary equipment, materials, and instruments for your examination. If needed, you should bring an extra battery for your loupes.

You are permitted to bring your lunch, snacks, drinks, medications (if pre-approved), and menstrual products. You must provide your own protective eyewear. Dental surgical loupes (and batteries) are permitted. You must also bring the NDECC^® card provided at registration.

If, during your exam, you leave the Test Centre, even to return to reception, you will not be permitted back into the Test Centre to complete your exam.

If you are using Outlook, make sure that you are using a newer browser such as Google Chrome.

You can also try copying the link in the email and pasting it into the browser instead of clicking directly on link in the email.

If neither of those solutions work, you can contact our office and we can reset your password for you.

• Make sure you are entering the email address you used when creating your NDEB account as your Username
• If you have forgotten your password, use the reset link on the log in page, you will receive an email to reset your password
• If you continue to experience difficulties, contact our office

No. The cut score that determines whether an examinee passes or fails is based on the recommendation of a subject matter expert panel through a process called standard setting. In this process, the panel has the opportunity to view the actual exam content and will then consider the content against the level of skill required of a competent dentist to set a pass mark. NDEB examinations are not designed to pass or fail a pre-determined percentage of examinees. If an examinee demonstrates competence to safely enter practice by answering a sufficient number of questions correctly, they will pass the examination regardless of how other examinees perform.

No. An examinee does not need to answer 75 percent of the questions correctly to receive a rescaled score of 75. The rescaled score is not the percentage of test questions the examinee answered correctly as it also takes into account the difficulty of the exam as established by a panel of experts through standard setting.

No, NDEB examinations contain more than one hundred questions. The overall rescaled score does not indicate the number of questions answered correctly. An examinee who receives a score of 74 could be one or several questions away from passing the examination.

Not all specialty programs are offered at every university. Additionally, availability of the DSATPs is dependent on the physical facilities available. Consequently, there are very few DSATP spaces offered across the county each year.

Your profile will only provide locations with availability. If your centre does not appear as an option, this indicates there is currently no availability for this location.

You can either register for another location, or wait until registration opens for the next examination.

To submit a Compassionate Appeal, fill out the Compassionate Appeal Request Form.

Relevant documentation is required to demonstrate how your work was affected and must be submitted at the time of request.

Examinees are notified of the result of the verification by email approximately 6 weeks following the request. Regrades are typically completed within 12 weeks.

In no circumstances will examinees have access to their examinations or scoresheets.

Verification of scores is available to examinees who have failed the examination. To request a verification of scores, you must login to your NDEBConnect account and select ‘Service Requests’ and follow the prompts for a ‘New Service Request’.

During an exam, any behavior that is considered to potentially compromise the integrity of the examination will be documented by the Test Administrator and submitted to the NDEB. Allegations of misconduct are investigated by staff and reviewed by the Examinations Committee. The consequences for compromising the integrity of an examination can be significant.

Simply stated, compromising the integrity of the exam means that an examinee has cheated or not followed the regulations outlined in the exam protocol.

A committee, consisting primarily of general dentists recommended by Provincial Dental Regulatory Authorities, selects the questions for use on examinations.

Questions used for each administration of the Assessment of Fundamental Knowledge (AFK), the Assessment of Clinical Judgement (ACJ), the Written Examination, and the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) are developed and reviewed by content experts who are primarily faculty members at Canadian faculties of dentistry.

Results are released based on the time indicated in the examination protocols.

Individual results cannot be given by phone or email and no information can be given prior to them being released.

Yes, you can withdraw from a session and register in another session if there is space available. Withdraw can now be processed instantaneously on your NDEBConnect profile and you can register immediately at another location, provided places are available and registration is still open. 

Location memos are usually posted to your online profile within two weeks of the registration deadline date. Keep an eye out for the email indicating new information has been posted to your online profile.

Your profile will only provide locations with availability. If your centre does not appear as an option, this indicates there is currently no availability for this location.

You can either register for another location, or wait until registration opens for the next examination.

You can only register for examinations when registration is open and if spaces are available. If you are unable to register, check the upcoming dates page to confirm registration is open. It is not unusual for examinations to fill-up prior to the registration deadline.

The fee for the Virtual OSCE is $2000.00.

If you have passed one of the current certification examinations but have not passed the other by the time the Virtual OSCE is implemented, you will be required to pass the Virtual OSCE to be certified.

The Virtual OSCE can be taken a maximum of three times.

No, a candidate who needs to repeat the Written Examination and/or OSCE will not have three attempts at the Virtual OSCE. The attempts at existing certification examinations are counted as part of the maximum number of times a person can take the Virtual OSCE.

Individuals who were previously approved to participate in the Equivalency Process will not have to resubmit their educational credentials. They will however, be required to submit a notarized copy of current government issued photo identification, upload a recent photograph, and a provide a name change request form if required.

Yes, there will be a small administrative fee for reapplication to the Equivalency Process. When your application is received and it is confirmed you are eligible, the application fee will be added to your online profile, and you will be notified to make the payment.

It is expected that a reapplication to the Equivalency Process will take between 8-10 weeks. This timeframe may change based on the volume of applications received.

If you reapply to the Equivalency Process, your previous examination scores will be voided and you will no longer have access to them. When you order a transcript, these scores will not be reported and the NDEB will be unable to confirm previous exam scores with third-parties.