Emergency dentist in Germany: who to call when a tooth goes wrong

Most guides for new arrivals in Germany teach you two numbers: 112 for a life-threatening emergency and 116117 for urgent problems outside practice hours. Both are correct, and neither will get you a dentist.

The 116117 FAQ is explicit about it: "Unter der 116117 erreichen Sie den ärztlichen Bereitschaftsdienst. Um Hilfe bei akuten zahnmedizinischen Problemen zu erhalten, wenden Sie sich bitte an den zahnärztlichen Bereitschaftsdienst." In plain terms, 116117 reaches the medical on-call service, and acute dental problems go to the dental on-call service instead (116117, häufige Fragen).

The same FAQ draws the line at the other end. It describes 116117 as covering conditions you would take to a practice during surgery hours, and states that for serious accidents and life-threatening emergencies 116117 is the wrong contact point. That is what 112 is for.

So there are three doors, not two:

• 112 for a life-threatening emergency, including facial trauma from an accident, swelling that is affecting breathing or swallowing, or bleeding you cannot control.
• Zahnärztlicher Bereitschaftsdienst for dental pain, a broken tooth, a lost crown or an abscess outside practice hours.
• Your own dentist during surgery hours, which is still the cheapest and fastest route whenever the clock allows it.

The on-call service exists for problems that cannot wait for the next working day. The Kassenzahnärztliche Vereinigung Land Brandenburg lists the cases needing immediate treatment as:

• "Unfallverletzungen im Bereich von Zahn, Mund und Kiefer (Zahn- und Kieferfrakturen, Zungen- und Lippenverletzungen)", meaning accident injuries to teeth, mouth and jaw, including fractures and tongue or lip injuries
• "Nachblutungen nach zahnärztlich oder chirurgischen Eingriffen", meaning bleeding that restarts after a dental or surgical procedure such as an extraction, wisdom-tooth surgery or implant work
• "Fieberhafte Abszesse oder akute Entzündungen", meaning febrile abscesses or acute inflammation

Source: KZV Land Brandenburg, zahnärztlicher Bereitschaftsdienst. Severe pain that keeps you awake belongs on that list too, which is what the service is set up to relieve.

What does not belong there is anything that can hold until Monday: a chipped edge that does not hurt, a check-up, a cleaning, or a crown you want replaced for appearance. Bringing those to the on-call service takes a slot from someone with an abscess and is likely to be billed privately.

There is no single national hotline. The rota is organised state by state, by the regional Kassenzahnärztliche Vereinigung and the regional Zahnärztekammer, so the number and the search page change when you move Bundesland.

The national starting point is the directory the Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung publishes at 116117.de, zahnärztliche Notdienste. It lists all sixteen states and links through to each region's own dentist and on-call search rather than giving one phone number.

Two worked examples of what you find at the other end:

• Nordrhein and Westfalen. A central recorded line on 01805 98 67 00 connects you automatically to the on-call area covering you and reads out the current rota (KZV Nordrhein). The Zahnärztekammer Nordrhein quotes the call charge as 14 cents a minute from a landline and at most 42 cents a minute from a mobile.
• Berlin. The Zahnärztekammer Berlin gives (030) 89 004 333 and describes a night service plus practices on duty at weekends and on public holidays, including an orthodontic on-call service for trouble with braces, splints and brackets.

Do this before you need it. Find your state's page tonight, save the number in your phone under a name you will recognise at three in the morning, and note the address of the nearest listed practice.

Set your expectations at the door. The Zahnärztekammer Nordrhein describes the on-call service as "auf die akute Schmerzbeseitigung (Notversorgung) begrenzt", limited to relieving acute pain (Zahnärztekammer Nordrhein).

In practice that means the on-call dentist stops the pain, drains an abscess, controls bleeding, or places a temporary dressing or a temporary cement on a lost crown. Definitive work, the permanent filling, the root canal completed properly, the new crown, is a follow-up appointment with a dentist of your choosing during normal hours.

The same page makes a practical point worth heeding: call before you set off, because on-call practices are "nicht durchgängig personell besetzt", not continuously staffed. Turning up unannounced can mean a locked door.

Ask, before you leave, for a written note of what was done and what needs doing next. You will need it for the follow-up appointment and for any claim.

Bring your electronic health insurance card, the elektronische Gesundheitskarte. The Zahnärztekammer Nordrhein reminds patients to have it with them, and without it a practice will normally ask you to pay privately and reclaim later.

On the money: the Federal Ministry of Health lists tartar removal, fillings, root canal treatment and treatment of oral mucosa conditions among the dental services statutory insurance covers without a patient co-payment (BMG, Zahnärztliche Behandlung, page last updated 17 April 2025). Emergency pain relief generally falls inside that ordinary treatment entitlement rather than being a separate paid service.

What that does not settle is every item a practice might do at night, or whether the visit is judged urgent at all. Rules on out-of-hours billing sit with the regional associations rather than in one national page, so ask at the desk what is being billed to the fund and what is not, and verify anything unclear with your Krankenkasse before you agree to extra work.

Take with you: the health insurance card, photo ID, a list of the medicines you take and any allergies, your Bonusheft if you have one, and the name of the practice you are registered with.

Toothache does not wait for paperwork, and the gap between landing and holding a health insurance card is exactly when people get caught.

If your statutory membership is running but the card has not arrived, ask your Krankenkasse for a provisional certificate of insurance, the Ersatzbescheinigung, and take that instead. If membership itself is not yet in place, expect the on-call practice to treat you as a private patient, take payment on the night, and hand you an invoice. Keep it.

On the insurance side, private medical cover taken for a visa or for a first year in Germany deals with medical care while public entitlement is being arranged. Dental benefits sit apart from medical cover on most private plans: emergency pain relief is treated differently from routine dentistry, dental treatment following an accident is often handled under its own heading, and waiting periods and annual caps are common on the dental side. Read the benefit schedule and the emergency clause before you need them, since what applies is whatever the policy wording says. Whatever you hold, keep the invoice, the written treatment note and the receipt, because no claim goes anywhere without all three.

You do not need fluent German, but a few exact phrases move the call along faster than an apology in English.

• "Ich habe starke Zahnschmerzen" for severe toothache.
• "Ich brauche den zahnärztlichen Notdienst" for I need the dental on-call service.
• "Ich habe eine Schwellung und Fieber" for swelling and fever, the wording that signals an abscess.
• "Die Blutung hört nicht auf" for the bleeding will not stop, after an extraction.
• "Eine Krone ist herausgefallen" for a crown has come out.

Whether the practice on duty speaks English varies and is not something the regional rotas publish, so do not count on it. If you can, have a German-speaking friend or colleague make the first call, or use your phone's translation app on speaker. Your consulate's list of English-speaking practitioners is worth saving in advance for the follow-up appointment, though embassy lists carry non-endorsement wording and are not a recommendation.