What a dental implant costs in Korea
Real per-tooth implant prices at Korean hospitals, by crown material and by region, with what the quoted figure does and does not include.
6 min read
Dental work is one of the few treatments people genuinely fly to Korea for on price alone, and it is one of the few where a published, verifiable number exists. Korean hospitals are required to disclose what they charge for treatment national insurance does not cover, and implants sit squarely in that category.
That is the median across 406 hospitals for the most commonly disclosed implant type. The spread underneath it is wide, and understanding why is most of what you need to know before asking anyone for a quote.
The price is per tooth, and the crown material drives it
Every figure below is one tooth. A quote for three implants is roughly three times these numbers, and the main thing separating them is what the visible crown is made of.
| Procedure | Median | Range | Hospitals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental implant, zirconia crownper tooth | ₩1,200,000 $860 | ₩300,000 – ₩3,045,950 | 406 |
| Dental implant, all-ceramic crownper tooth | ₩1,500,000 $1,080 | ₩800,000 – ₩2,997,473 | 78 |
| Dental implant, porcelain-fused-to-metal crownper tooth | ₩1,200,000 $860 | ₩330,000 – ₩2,794,113 | 293 |
| Dental implant, porcelain-fused-to-gold crownper tooth | ₩1,700,000 $1,220 | ₩800,000 – ₩3,386,000 | 88 |
| Dental implant, gold crownper tooth | ₩1,620,000 $1,170 | ₩570,000 – ₩3,000,000 | 154 |
| Dental implant, metal crownper tooth | ₩1,175,000 $850 | ₩350,000 – ₩1,900,000 | 26 |
Zirconia and all-ceramic are tooth-coloured and are what most people picture. Porcelain fused to metal is the older compromise: a metal substructure with a ceramic facing. Gold and plain metal are typically used on back teeth where appearance matters less and durability matters more.
Material is not purely cosmetic, and it is not a decision to make from a price table. It is a conversation with the dentist about which tooth, how you bite, and how much room there is. The table tells you what the choice costs, not which one you should make.
What the number does not include
This is the part that catches people out. The disclosed implant price covers the implant and its crown. It does not include:
- Extraction of the tooth being replaced, if it is still there.
- Bone grafting or a sinus lift, which a significant share of implant patients need and which is quoted separately. This can be a large addition.
- Imaging — a CT or panoramic X-ray to plan placement.
- Consultations and follow-up visits, including the second stage months later when the crown is fitted.
A realistic budget is therefore above the table figure, sometimes well above. Ask any hospital for a written quote that itemises these separately rather than a single number.
Where you go changes the price
Regional variation on implants is real and larger than most patients expect — the median in the cheapest region sits meaningfully below the most expensive. Seoul is not automatically the costly option, and the cheapest region is not automatically a compromise.
The zirconia implant page breaks the same figure down by region and lists every hospital that discloses a price, cheapest first, each shown against its own local median.
An important limit on this data
These figures come from hospital-grade institutions: dental hospitals, general hospitals, and tertiary hospitals. Standalone dental clinics — the small neighbourhood practices that do a large share of Korean dental work — are outside this disclosure and publish nothing.
That does not make the hospital figures unrepresentative, but it does mean a clinic quote you receive privately cannot be checked against this data directly. Use the hospital median as your reference point and treat a clinic quote far outside the published range as something to ask questions about.
Other dental work
If you are having restorative work rather than implants, the same disclosure covers crowns, inlays, fillings and cleaning:
| Procedure | Median | Range | Hospitals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crown, zirconiaper tooth | ₩500,000 $360 | ₩180,000 – ₩1,222,730 | 435 |
| Crown, porcelain-fused-to-metalper tooth | ₩400,000 $290 | ₩204,000 – ₩750,000 | 423 |
| Crown, goldper tooth | ₩650,000 $470 | ₩211,000 – ₩1,317,480 | 445 |
| Ceramic inlayper tooth | ₩308,000 $220 | ₩168,000 – ₩716,000 | 274 |
| Gold inlayper tooth | ₩400,000 $290 | ₩183,600 – ₩1,000,000 | 401 |
| Composite resin filling, 2 surfacesper tooth | ₩120,000 $86 | ₩30,000 – ₩400,000 | 413 |
| Full-mouth scaling | ₩60,000 $43 | ₩9,000 – ₩161,530 | 413 |
Full-mouth scaling is worth noting because it is inexpensive and often bundled into a first visit. Its median is a small fraction of any restorative procedure.
Every figure here links through to the hospital-by-hospital list, and the dental category page holds all of it in one place.
Figures on this page are read from the published disclosure data at build time, so they match the price pages exactly. This is general information about published prices, not medical advice, and it does not recommend any hospital. Confirm any figure with the hospital before treatment.