TRICARE dental explained
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If you take one thing from this site, take this: your TRICARE medical plan does not pay for a cleaning, a filling or a crown. Dental is a separate program you enroll in separately — and which program is yours changes at least twice over a military career.
Three programs, one of them is yours
- Active duty service member? Military dental clinics, at no cost. The Active Duty Dental Program (ADDP) covers you when there's no clinic within reach.
- Family member, or Guard/Reserve not on active duty? The TRICARE Dental Program (TDP) — voluntary, monthly premium, run by United Concordia.
- Retired? Neither of the above. You buy dental through FEDVIP, the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, via BENEFEDS.
Active duty: the clinic, and the program for when there isn't one
Active duty service members get most dental care at a military dental clinic. You don't enroll, you don't pay a premium, and readiness requirements mean the command has a stake in you going.
The gap the ADDP fills is distance. If you're stationed more than 50 miles from a military dental clinic in the United States, or you're on TRICARE Prime Remote overseas, the Active Duty Dental Program routes you to a civilian dentist. It's administered by United Concordia, the same company that runs the family program, but it is a different program with a different dentist directory — don't search the wrong one.
- ADDP in the United States: 866-984-2337
- ADDP overseas: 844-653-4058
- ADDP dentist finder
Active duty members are not eligible for the TRICARE Dental Program. That program is for your family. Trying to enroll yourself in it is one of the most common wasted phone calls in this whole benefit.
Families and Guard/Reserve: the TRICARE Dental Program
The TDP is voluntary and premium-based. You're eligible if you're a family member of an active duty service member, a family member of a Guard or Reserve member, or a Guard or Reserve member who isn't currently on active duty and isn't covered by the Transitional Assistance Management Program.
You are not eligible if you're an active duty service member, if you're on active duty orders longer than 30 days, if you're covered by TAMP, or if you're retired.
United Concordia administers it. TRICARE confirmed that in April 2026, and the underlying contract runs through November 30, 2029 — so the directory you bookmark today should stay valid for a while, which is not something we can say about most things on this site.
2026–2027 premiums
These cover the plan year running March 1, 2026 through February 28, 2027.
| Sponsor category | Single | Family (two or more) |
|---|---|---|
| Active duty family member, sponsor E-4 and below | $8.79/mo | $22.85/mo |
| Active duty family member, sponsor E-5 and above | $11.72/mo | $30.47/mo |
| Selected Reserve / Individual Ready Reserve (not mobilized) | $29.30/mo | $76.18/mo |
Source: tricare.mil TDP premiums, verified August 1, 2026. A Selected Reserve or Individual Ready Reserve sponsor enrolling themselves plus family pays $105.48 a month combined. Premiums are billed a month in advance and reset each March.
Note the pay-grade split: an E-4 family pays $22.85 a month where an E-5 family pays $30.47 for the same coverage. And the Reserve rate is roughly three times the active duty family rate, because there's no government contribution behind it.
Retirees: the handoff to FEDVIP
This is where families get blindsided. The day you retire, TRICARE Dental Program eligibility ends. Dental coverage after that comes through the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program — run by the Office of Personnel Management, not by TRICARE, enrolled through BENEFEDS.
Practically, that means three changes at once: a different set of plans to choose from, a different premium, and a different network. Your family dentist of eight years may be in network for the TDP and out of network for whichever FEDVIP plan you pick. Check before you enrol, not after.
FEDVIP enrollment normally happens during the Federal Benefits Open Season, held in November in recent years. As of August 1, 2026, OPM had published only that the last season concluded and that the next would be in November 2026 — no dates. We won't invent a range; watch OPM's open season page.
Survivors. Where a sponsor died on active duty, TRICARE pays 100% of the TDP premium. Surviving spouses keep that for three years and then move to FEDVIP; surviving children stay enrolled until they otherwise lose TRICARE eligibility. Source: tricare.mil.
Finding a dentist, and what to ask
Search the directory for your program: the TDP dentist finder for families and Guard/Reserve, the ADDP finder for active duty, and your specific carrier's directory on FEDVIP.
When you call the office, don't ask "do you take TRICARE." Ask "are you in network with United Concordia for the TRICARE Dental Program?" — or name your FEDVIP carrier. Front desk staff know the insurer's name; "TRICARE" on its own means the medical plan to most of them, and you'll get a confused answer to a question you didn't mean to ask.
Related: Dentists that accept TRICARE · Vision coverage · Plans explained
TRICARE benefit rules change on contract cycles and at the turn of each calendar year. This guide was checked against tricare.mil on August 1, 2026. If something here doesn't match what your regional contractor tells you, they're right and we want to know — use the form below.