Dental care remains one of the areas where access to healthcare in Cyprus continues to depend heavily on a patient’s financial means. According to this year’s European Commission report on Cyprus, in 2025 some 5.7 per cent of people below the poverty line reported unmet dental care needs, compared with just 1.3 per cent among those above it.
In other words, financially vulnerable citizens are more than four times as likely to go without the dental care they need.
This finding highlights that oral health is not merely a matter of prevention or personal discipline. For part of the population, visiting the dentist remains something that can be postponed, limited, or deferred until the problem becomes urgent. The same report notes that, although out-of-pocket spending decreased following the 2019 reform, it still accounted for about 18 per cent of total health expenditure in Cyprus in 2023, above the EU average of 15 per cent. Of these private payments, 20 per cent related to dental care.
Low public coverage
The picture becomes clearer when comparing public dental coverage in Cyprus with the rest of Europe. According to the Commission, public coverage stands below 15 per cent in Cyprus, while the EU average is around 35 per cent.
This gap explains why, even within a universal system such as GeSY, dental care remains largely a private expense for many citizens.
Low coverage also coincides with a weak culture of prevention. Previous reporting by Politis found that most Cypriots visit the dentist less than once every two years, while nine per cent of adults may go more than five to seven years without a dental visit.
This trend is not linked to a shortage of dentists. Cyprus has around 1.4 dentists per 1,000 residents and more than 1,200 practising professionals.
Underused prevention
At the same time, newer data from the Health Insurance Organisation, published by Phileleftheros, show that even the services offered under GeSY are not fully utilised.
The annual dental service available to beneficiaries was used by 32.7 per cent in 2024 and 34.1 per cent in 2025. Overall, services were provided to 491,155 beneficiaries out of a total of 1,025,814.
The result is a dual reality: on one hand, citizens who do not take advantage of the preventive services available to them; on the other, financially vulnerable individuals who report going without the dental care they need.
In practice, oral health remains one of the clearest indicators of where universal coverage ends and out-of-pocket spending begins.
