Your Annual Renewal Period 2026

Dental technologists, it's time to start thinking about your annual renewal for 2026. This year, your renewal period opens on 8 June and closes on 31 July. In that time, you'll need to make sure you've done three things: paid your Annual Retention Fee (ARF) of £108, checked you have indemnity cover in place, and that you've completed your minimum number of CPD hours.

This can all be done via your MyGDC  account, which the GDC launched to replace eGDC in March. If you haven't already, it's important that you log in to MyGDC and reset your password as soon as you can with your email address you used for eGDC. Please don't create a new account, as this will make a duplicate record that is not linked to your old eGDC account, and may impact your ability to renew. Guidance on how to log in to your account can be found on the GDC website. If you continue experiencing issues, you can contact the GDC  who will be able to help you.

You can log in to MyGDC at any time to check how many hours of CPD you need to complete. Dental technicians must complete at least 50 hours for each CPD cycle, and clinical dental technicians need to do at least 75 hours.

You can make your CPD statement after the 31 July renewal deadline, but it must be submitted by 28 August. Remember that any CPD you do, on or after 1 August, will count towards the following year. You don't have to complete CPD hours every year, but you do have to make a statement, and do at least 10 hours of CPD in every two-year period.

If you've not completed any CPD during the year, record zero hours when you make your statement and make sure you do enough CPD (at least 10 hours) in the following year to meet the minimum requirements. Even if you are in the first year of a new CPD cycle, you must make sure you have completed at least 10 hours of verifiable CPD over the last two years.

You are responsible for obtaining the necessary evidence from your CPD providers. You should check that your provider will give you the evidence you need for verifiable CPD before completing it. You can find out more about the evidence you need in the GDC's CPD guidance.

As usual, alongside your renewal, the GDC will ask you to answer a short survey on your working patterns. It's a few questions about how you work, where you work and how long you work for each week, and takes five minutes to complete. To date, 35,474 dentists (75% of the dentist register) have answered the questions, the results of which were released in March, and 56,184 dental care professionals (70% of the register) have also answered.

This work is part of the GDC's continued commitment to help the sector better understand its access challenges and illustrate the public debate on the dental workforce. The information you provide when you complete the survey can help improve the sector's understanding of dental professionals' working patterns and help provide important insight into the issues affecting dental professionals and patients.

According to the latest numbers, there are 463 clinical dental technicians and 5,006 dental technicians on the register. If you all complete the survey, we will get a much better picture of the workforce challenges that our profession faces.

Remember, you must make sure you pay your annual retention fee, provide your CPD statement and confirm you have indemnity to stay on the register. Completing these steps means that those of you who want to stay on the register can do so, and you can keep delivering great dental care and technology for your patients.