# The INBDE Candidate Guide, Explained (2026 Edition)

The INBDE Candidate Guide is the JCNDE's official rulebook for the exam — and the copy you found may not be the one that governs you. This companion identifies the current edition (2026, Updated 08/04/2026), walks its sections in plain English with page references, and keeps a ledger of what actually changed between editions, so you can tell current rules from circulating stale copies.

Last verified 2026-08-09. INBDE® is a registered trademark of the American Dental Association, administered by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (JCNDE). Dentovio is an independent prep provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by JCNDE or the ADA. Exam rules, fees, and policies change — confirm current requirements in the Candidate Guide at JCNDE.ADA.org before acting.

## Key facts

- **Current edition:** 2026 Candidate Guide — “Updated: 08/04/2026” — 42 pages, free from JCNDE's site. The update stamp is printed on every page — that is how you check a copy.
- **The edition change that matters:** Post-limit retest wait: 12 months → 6 months — The 2025 edition (Updated 12/11/2024) said candidates past the 5 Years/5 Attempts limit test once every 12 months. The 2026 guide says once every 6 months.
- **2026 fees:** $890 exam + $435 non-CODA processing — About $1,325 per attempt for most internationally trained candidates. Fees are non-refundable and non-transferable.
- **Eligibility window:** 6 months from application processing — Untested eligibility forfeits the fee. One 45-day extension per application, $150.
- **Where you can test:** Prometric centers — US, US territories, Canada — No remote proctoring. International candidates plan travel around this.
- **Results:** Within 4 weeks, via DENTPIN account — Most within 3 weeks. Pass/fail on a 49–99 scale; 75 is the minimum pass.

<a id="what-it-is"></a>
## What the Candidate Guide is, and which edition is current
The INBDE Candidate Guide is the JCNDE's official policy document for the Integrated National Board Dental Examination: who is eligible, how to apply, what it costs, how scheduling works, what happens on test day, how scoring works, and the retesting rules. The JCNDE is an agency of the American Dental Association; the exam program is implemented by the ADA's testing department and delivered at Prometric test centers. One line in the guide explains why the edition question matters more than it seems: candidates are bound by "the policies and procedures currently in effect at the time of your test administration" — the rules that apply to you are the current ones, not the ones in whichever PDF you happened to save.

**The current edition is the 2026 Candidate Guide, marked "Updated: 08/04/2026," 42 pages.** The update stamp is printed on every page, so checking a copy takes two seconds — open any page and read the date:

- **"Updated: 08/04/2026"** — current. This is the edition this page annotates.
- **"Updated: 12/15/2025"** — the earlier print of the same 2026 edition. We compared the two side by side: every policy value we track (fees, the administration schedule, the 7-day rule, retake rules, scoring language, the test-specification table, the Patient Box text) is unchanged between the 12/15/2025 and 08/04/2026 prints.
- **"Updated: 12/11/2024"** — the superseded 2025 edition. It carries at least one retired rule (the 12-month post-limit retest wait, covered in the [what-changed ledger](#what-changed)).

Always download the guide from JCNDE's own site — the [official Candidate Guide PDF](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/inbde_candidate_guide.pdf) is free. Stale copies circulate for a mundane reason: document-sharing and note-sharing sites host scraped uploads of older editions, and those uploads rank in search long after the edition dies. The official URL serves the updated document at the same address, so any re-upload freezes whatever edition it was scraped from — copies of the 2024 guide are still ranking today. Even official web pages can lag the guide itself: JCNDE's own INBDE web page has displayed a $65 results-audit fee while the current guide's fee table says $105. When two sources disagree, the current Candidate Guide's own table is the controlling one.

Here is the map of the guide, with the printed page numbers used throughout this companion:

| What it covers | Printed pages | In plain English |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The exam, who accepts it, arbitration | p. 2, p. 40 | One written exam recognized by every US licensing jurisdiction; agreeing to arbitration is a prerequisite to testing |
| The blueprint and test specifications | pp. 5–11 | The full content grid the exam samples, and how the 500 questions are weighted across it |
| Question formats, the Patient Box, sample charts | pp. 12–15 | 3–5 options, one best answer; EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT capitalized; the on-screen case panel and its blank-field rule |
| Preparation materials | pp. 16–17 | Free official practice questions; JCNDE recommends textbooks and lecture notes and endorses no commercial course |
| Scoring, results, audits | pp. 18–19 | Scaled 49–99, 75 passes; results within 4 weeks via DENTPIN; the $105 audit |
| Eligibility | p. 20 | The lanes annotated below, including ECE confirmation for non-CODA candidates |
| Retesting | p. 21 | 60-day wait, 4 per 12 months, 5 Years/5 Attempts, then once every 6 months |
| Fees and rescheduling | pp. 22–23 | $890 / $435 / the $1,080 bundle / reschedule tiers |
| The two-day schedule | pp. 24–25 | Section-by-section timing, breaks, and the 7-day same-center rule |
| Application and DENTPIN | pp. 26–27 | The 6-month window and the exact-name-match requirement |
| Test-day rules and conduct | pp. 27, 32–37 | The two-ID rule, security screening, note boards, prohibited items |
| What cannot be appealed | p. 39 | The retest restrictions and audit outcomes, among others |

<a id="eligibility"></a>
## Eligibility and DENTPIN, annotated
**Everything starts with a DENTPIN** — the unique 8-digit testing ID managed at ADA.org/DENTPIN. You need it before you apply, and the guide attaches an unforgiving rule to it: the name on your DENTPIN must match your identification documents **exactly**, or you are denied admission at the test center and your fees are forfeited. For internationally trained candidates whose documents render a name more than one way, reconciling this before applying is the single cheapest piece of preparation available.

The guide's eligibility section (p. 20) then sorts candidates into lanes:

- **Current students of CODA-accredited programs** are eligible when the dean (or designee) confirms they are prepared in all applicable disciplines.
- **Former students of CODA programs** qualify only if admitted or conditionally admitted to another CODA program, with a dean letter.
- **Graduates of CODA programs** who are ADA active, life, or retired members are automatically eligible; other graduates submit diploma or degree verification.
- **Canadian CDAC-accredited programs** are treated as CODA-accredited under a reciprocal agreement.

**For internationally trained candidates, the guide is unusually absolute.** Its wording: "ALL candidates educated by non-CODA-accredited dental programs must have their educational degree confirmed through Educational Credential Evaluators Inc. (ECE)." ECE is the sole named evaluator — no alternative agency appears in the guide. On ECE's side, the exam-only path is the U.S. General Report ($110); the Course-by-Course Report ($199) is also accepted and is what most dental schools require later, and the name on the ECE report must match your DENTPIN exactly.

One distinction trips up non-CODA candidates every cycle, so here it is precisely:

- **Graduated from a non-CODA program?** Your path is the ECE degree confirmation above.
- **Still enrolled in a non-CODA program?** You cannot have a degree confirmed yet, so the guide requires your **status** to be confirmed instead, "through the completion of the Certification of Eligibility Form." The completed form "must be sent by the educational program and must include both the seal of the university and the signature of the dean or registrar" — your school sends it to the JCNDE. It is not an ECE document.

For where the exam then fits in the larger journey — credential evaluation, English proficiency, ADEA CAAPID, advanced standing — see the [international dentist's guide](/inbde/for-international-dentists).

<a id="application-fees"></a>
## Application, fees, and the 6-month eligibility window
The 2026 fee table, from the guide's own pages:

| Fee | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Examination fee | **$890** — includes results reporting to you, up to three licensing jurisdictions if requested at application, and your CODA-accredited program |
| Processing fee, non-CODA candidates | **$435** — so most internationally trained candidates pay about **$1,325 per attempt** |
| INBDE + DLOSCE bundle | **$1,080** — the guide states this saves $470 versus separate registration; the DLOSCE is optional and separately accepted state by state |
| Eligibility extension | **$150** — one 45-day extension per application, only while no appointment is scheduled |
| Rescheduling through Prometric | **$50** with 30+ business days' notice, **$70** with 5–29, **$150** with 1–4 — Saturdays and Sundays are not business days |
| Arriving 30+ minutes late, or not showing | Full testing fee forfeited |
| Additional results report | **$55** per report |
| Results audit | **$105**, requested within 30 days of the reporting date |

All fees are in US dollars and are non-refundable and non-transferable.

**The eligibility window is the part of this section candidates underestimate.** The guide's wording (p. 26): "After DTS processes a candidate's application, that candidate is eligible to test for a six-month period, unless other considerations — including retest rules and program requirements — limit the eligibility period to a shorter timeframe." Three consequences follow directly:

1. **The clock starts at processing, not at your convenience.** Application processing runs Monday through Friday during standard US business hours; once processed, your six months are running.
2. **An untested window forfeits the fee.** If the window lapses, "the application fee is forfeited, and the candidate will need to submit a new application and payment in order to sit for the examination." A new application and fee are required before **each** testing attempt.
3. **The one extension is narrow.** $150 buys a single 45-day extension per application, and only while you have no scheduled appointment.

The planning implication: apply when your study runway says you are four to five months out, not at the start of a long preparation. Our [cost calculator](/inbde/cost-calculator) itemizes the full journey — exam, processing, evaluation, applications, travel — from your own numbers.

<a id="scheduling"></a>
## Scheduling with Prometric: where, when, and the two-day rules
The INBDE is delivered year-round at **Prometric test centers in the United States, its territories, and Canada — only**. There is no remote proctoring and no overseas delivery, which is why internationally trained candidates plan travel (and any visa lead time) around the exam rather than the other way round. JCNDE's own scheduling advice is to book **60 to 90 days ahead** of your target dates, because center capacity fills.

The exam runs across two separate days, and the guide binds them together with two rules worth treating as one:

- **Day 2 must occur within 7 days of Day 1, at the same test center.** The days do not need to be consecutive, but break either condition and you retest at your own expense — a new application at full fees.
- **Book both days as a pair.** Since the window and center are fixed by rule, the two appointments are one booking decision, made together, before anything else lands on your calendar.

Rescheduling economics reward early decisions: $50 with 30 or more business days' notice, $70 at 5–29, $150 at 1–4 — and weekends do not count as business days, so a "week out" is often already in the $150 tier. For the section-by-section timing of both days — and why Day 2's 140-question case format deserves its own preparation — see the [Day 2 guide](/inbde/day-2).

<a id="test-day"></a>
## Test-day rules: IDs, security, and what you cannot bring
The guide's admission rules are mechanical, and the failure mode is expensive — denied admission with forfeited fees — so this is a checklist section, not a judgment one.

**Identification: two original physical IDs.**

- **Primary:** a government-issued photo ID carrying your name and signature.
- **Secondary:** an ID with your name and signature — a debit, credit, or library card qualifies.
- **Expired and digital IDs are rejected**, and the names must match your DENTPIN exactly.

**Security screening is biometric and thorough.** Expect photo, fingerprint, or palm-vein capture, a metal-detector wand, and inspection of eyeglasses and hair accessories. Jewelry is prohibited except wedding and engagement rings.

**What you work with, and what stays out.** The center issues two note boards and two markers each day, surrendered or erased at day's end. Watches, phones, food, translators, and dictionaries are among the prohibited items. On unscheduled breaks the rules stay strict: no access to your locker or personal items, no eating or drinking, and no leaving the test center — the scheduled breaks are the day's whole recovery budget. One mechanical mercy: the test timer pauses while questions load, so lag does not consume testing time.

**If something goes wrong** — an emergency, a center problem — the formal path is a written relief request to **testingproblems@ADA.org within 5 business days**, with documentation.

The guide's test-day and conduct chapters (printed pp. 27 and 32–37) run longer than this summary, including the full prohibited-items list, center procedures, and the confidentiality rules every candidate electronically signs. That detail is worth reading in the guide's own words before test day: [download the official PDF](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/inbde_candidate_guide.pdf).

<a id="scoring"></a>
## Scoring and results, in brief
The scoring section is two printed pages, and four rules carry almost all of its weight:

- **Results are pass/fail.** Candidates who pass see only the word "Pass" — no numeric score. Candidates who fail receive their overall scale score plus a numeric breakdown across the three Clinical Content areas and ten Foundation Knowledge areas, issued for remediation planning.
- **The scale runs 49 to 99, and 75 is the minimum pass.** A scale score is not a percent correct. The guide's own words: "A scale score of 74 does NOT mean that a candidate would have passed the examination if they had answered one more question correctly."
- **The exam is criterion-referenced — there is no curve** — scoring accounts for question difficulty, quality, and susceptibility to guessing, and there is no penalty for guessing. Some questions are unscored experimental items indistinguishable from scored ones.
- **Results post to your DENTPIN account within 4 weeks of your exam date, most within 3.** A results audit costs $105, must be requested within 30 days of the reporting date, and takes about 4 to 6 weeks.

The full mechanics — what each report shows, who else receives results, attempt-history disclosure, and what JCNDE deliberately does not publish — are in our dedicated [results and scoring guide](/inbde/results).

<a id="retakes"></a>
## Retake rules, in brief
Printed page 21 is the single most consequential page of the guide for anyone who has failed, and its rules stack:

- **60-day minimum wait** between unsuccessful attempts.
- **Maximum 4 administrations in any 12-month period.** A fifth seating opens only 12 months after the first attempt in that window.
- **The 5 Years/5 Attempts rule:** pass within five years of your first attempt or five attempts, whichever comes first. Past that limit, the current guide allows testing "once every six (6) months after their most recent examination attempt" — the rule that changed between editions (next section).
- **These restrictions are not subject to appeal** — the guide says so at the rule, and repeats it in the non-appealable list on p. 39.
- **Every retake is a full new application at full fees** — $890, plus $435 non-CODA processing for most internationally trained candidates. The guide also encourages formal remediation before re-examination.

An attempt, for counting purposes, begins when you are seated at the test-center computer and electronically agree to the confidentiality statement. For the complete playbook — reading the fail report, rebuilding a plan, and what the evidence says about unchanged preparation — see [failed the INBDE?](/retaker/failed-inbde); to compute your earliest eligible retest date under these rules, use the [retake calculator](/inbde/retake-calculator).

<a id="what-changed"></a>
## What changed between editions — and why pages disagree
This is the section the rest of the internet is missing. INBDE pages contradict each other not because anyone is careless, but because the Candidate Guide changes under a stable URL: each edition replaces the last at the same address, every scraped or re-uploaded copy freezes the edition it came from, and prep sites cite whichever version they read. Here is the verified ledger.

**The headline change: the post-limit retest wait went from 12 months to 6.** The 2025 Candidate Guide (Updated 12/11/2024) told candidates past the 5 Years/5 Attempts limit they could test "once every 12 months." The 2026 guide changed that to "once every six (6) months after their most recent examination attempt," and added a clarifying sentence about when a fifth attempt in a rolling window opens. Any page still saying 12 months is quoting the superseded edition — an older standalone JCNDE retest-policy PDF carrying the 12-month rule also still circulates, which keeps the stale figure alive in search results.

**The other 2025 → 2026 edition changes we verified:**

- **The examination fee rose $10**, from $880 (2025) to $890 (2026).
- **The results-report and audit fees in the 2026 table are $55 and $105.** JCNDE's own INBDE web page displayed a stale $65 audit fee after the guide moved on — a reminder that even the publisher's web copy can lag the controlling document.
- **The INBDE + DLOSCE pricing bundle arrived in 2025** and is carried in the 2026 guide at $1,080, stated as saving $470 versus separate registration.

**Within the 2026 edition, the 08/04/2026 update changed no policy we track.** We compared the 12/15/2025 and 08/04/2026 prints value by value — fees, the administration schedule, the 7-day rule, the retake rules, the scoring language, the test-specification table, the Patient Box text — and found them identical. If you studied the December print, nothing in the August stamp invalidates it; the stamp is why we re-verified rather than a reason to panic.

**The biggest recent policy event is not an edition diff at all.** The JCNDE implemented a new, more demanding performance standard on June 1, 2024 (approved at its May 17, 2024 meeting) — that lives in the Technical Report and the meeting record, not in a Candidate Guide change, and it is why pass-rate discussions divide at mid-2024. The cohort numbers are in our [pass-rates guide](/inbde/pass-rates).

The practical rule this ledger teaches: **when any two INBDE sources disagree, check the update stamp, and let the current Candidate Guide's own text control.** That is the guide's own position — you are bound by the policies in effect when you test.

## Questions candidates ask about the Candidate Guide

### Is there a new INBDE Candidate Guide?

The current edition is the **2026 Candidate Guide, marked “Updated: 08/04/2026”** on every page. The 08/04/2026 stamp is an update within the 2026 edition — we compared it with the earlier 12/15/2025 print and every policy value we track is unchanged. The substantive changes arrived with the 2026 edition itself, most notably the post-limit retest wait dropping from 12 months to 6.

### Where do I download the official INBDE Candidate Guide PDF?

From JCNDE's own site — the guide is free on the INBDE pages at JCNDE.ADA.org, and the PDF's address stays stable across editions. Download it fresh rather than saving a copy from a document-sharing or note-sharing site: re-uploaded copies freeze whichever edition they were scraped from, and copies of superseded editions still rank in search.

### How do I know if my copy of the Candidate Guide is current?

Open any page and read the **“Updated:” stamp** printed on it. **08/04/2026** is current; **12/15/2025** is the earlier print of the same 2026 edition with identical policy content; **12/11/2024** is the superseded 2025 edition, which still carries the retired 12-month post-limit retest wait.

### What does the Candidate Guide say about retaking the INBDE?

Four stacked rules on printed p. 21: a **60-day minimum wait** between unsuccessful attempts; a **maximum of 4 administrations in any 12-month period**; the **5 Years/5 Attempts rule** (pass within five years of your first attempt or five attempts, whichever comes first); and past that limit, **one attempt every 6 months** after your most recent attempt. The guide marks these restrictions not subject to appeal, and every retake requires a full new application and fee.

### What are the INBDE fees in the 2026 Candidate Guide?

The examination fee is **$890**; candidates from non-CODA programs pay an additional **$435** processing fee (about $1,325 per attempt). The INBDE + DLOSCE bundle is $1,080. An eligibility extension is $150; rescheduling through Prometric runs $50 / $70 / $150 by notice tier; an additional results report is $55; a results audit is $105. All fees are non-refundable and non-transferable.

### What changed between the 2025 and 2026 INBDE Candidate Guides?

Two verified changes: the **post-5 Years/5 Attempts retest wait dropped from once every 12 months to once every 6 months**, and the examination fee rose from $880 to $890. The 2026 guide also carries the INBDE + DLOSCE bundle introduced in 2025 and the current $55 results-report and $105 audit fees. Pages still quoting a 12-month post-limit wait are citing the superseded 2025 edition.

### Is the Candidate Guide the same as the INBDE Technical Report?

No — they are companions. The **Candidate Guide** is the candidate-facing rulebook: eligibility, fees, scheduling, test-day rules, scoring policy, retakes. The **Technical Report** is the JCNDE's psychometric documentation: how the exam is built and scored, the standard-setting record, and the cohort outcome data (Table 16.1) behind every published pass-rate figure. Both are free from JCNDE's site, and this page's companion for the outcome data is our [pass-rates guide](/inbde/pass-rates).

### Does the Candidate Guide say what to bring on test day?

Yes — the admission and conduct chapters (printed pp. 27 and 32–37) cover it in full. The load-bearing rules: **two original physical IDs** (a government photo ID with name and signature, plus a second signed ID), names matching your DENTPIN exactly, no expired or digital IDs, biometric security screening, and a prohibited-items list that includes watches, phones, food, translators, and dictionaries. Read those pages in the guide's own words before test day.

## Primary sources

- **CG** — [INBDE 2026 Candidate Guide (JCNDE, updated 08/04/2026) — the controlling document: editions, eligibility, DENTPIN, fees, eligibility window, scheduling, test-day rules, scoring, results, and retake rules](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/inbde_candidate_guide.pdf)
- **TR** — [INBDE Technical Report (JCNDE, 2025 edition) — psychometric documentation, the June 1, 2024 standard implementation, and Table 16.1 cohort outcomes](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/inbde_technical_report.pdf)
- **CG-2025** — [INBDE 2025 Candidate Guide (superseded; updated 12/11/2024) — cited only to date the post-limit retest change from 12 months to 6 months; not an authority for any current rule](https://jcnde.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/jcnde/files/2025_inbde_candidate_guide.pdf)

## Disclaimers

- INBDE® is a registered trademark of the American Dental Association, administered by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (JCNDE). Dentovio is an independent prep provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by JCNDE or the ADA. The Candidate Guide is JCNDE's document; this page is an independent companion to it.
- This page was drafted with AI assistance, and every rule and figure on it was verified against the primary sources listed above. It covers examination logistics and policy only — no clinical content — and it makes no reviewer claim.
- Exam rules, fees, and policies change on JCNDE's schedule, and candidates are bound by the policies in effect at the time of their test administration. The current Candidate Guide at JCNDE.ADA.org is the authoritative record — confirm requirements there before you apply, schedule, or travel.
- This guide is educational information, not legal, immigration, licensure, or test-outcome advice, and it does not predict any candidate's result.