Guide

How to check a Polish dentist is registered — Poland's register, in English

Reviewed by our editorial team·Updated 2026-09-17·General information

Poland was the second most common destination for people from Great Britain travelling abroad for medical treatment in 2024, after Turkey, according to the Office for National Statistics. (Those figures cover all medical treatment, not only dental, and ONS publishes them as official statistics in development.)

If you are one of them, the person placing your implant should be on Poland's Central Register of Physicians and Dentists. You can check that yourself, free, before you pay a deposit. The register is in Polish. This guide walks through it in English, step by step.

1. Ask for two things: the dentist's full name and PWZ number

• The full name of the dentist who will treat you — the person holding the drill, not the clinic owner or the patient coordinator.
• Their PWZ number — numer prawa wykonywania zawodu, literally the "right-to-practise number". It is the dentist's licence number, and it is the one thing that identifies them unambiguously on the register.

A clinic that is confident about its dentists gives you both without fuss.

2. Check the number is well-formed — one minute, no website needed

The Polish Chamber of Physicians and Dentists (NIL) publishes the rules every PWZ number follows. A PWZ number:

• has seven digits,
• never starts with 0,
• and its first digit is a check digit worked out from the other six.

To test one, take digits two to seven, multiply them by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in turn, add the results, and divide by 11. The remainder must equal the first digit. NIL's own example is 5425740:

4×1 + 2×2 + 5×3 + 7×4 + 4×5 + 0×6 = 71, and 71 divided by 11 leaves 5 — which is the first digit.

If the number you were given fails this test, it has been mistyped or it is not a PWZ number. Ask again before going any further.

Two cautions. A number that passes is only well-formed, not proven — step 3 is the proof. And NIL says the number carries no information about the person: it does not tell you whether they are a doctor or a dentist.

3. Look the dentist up on the register

1. Go to rejestr.nil.org.pl — NIL links to it as "Sprawdź lekarza lub lekarza dentystę", "check a doctor or dentist". 2. You can search by PWZ number, or by first name and surname. Use the number if you have it. 3. Before the search runs you will need to tick two consent boxes, and you may be asked to tick "Nie jestem robotem" — "I'm not a robot". 4. Check that the name and the PWZ number on the entry both match what the clinic gave you, and look at whether the entry records any restrictions on their right to practise.

If a name search finds nobody, do not conclude the dentist is unregistered. Polish names carry letters such as ł, ś and ż, spellings on English-language websites are often simplified, and a name search is only as good as the spelling you type. Try the name with and without the Polish letters, then ask the clinic for the PWZ number and search by that.

If a name search finds several people, that is normal — one of our own lookups for a Kraków clinician returned three people with the same name. The PWZ number is how you tell them apart.

4. What the register does not tell you

• It is kept by the profession's own chamber. NIL says the register was built and is maintained from the membership fees of the medical self-government, and that it is published online so that a patient can check a doctor's details. That is exactly the use this guide describes; NIL also says use of the register is monitored and that using it for other purposes can get access blocked.
• It does not show disciplinary history. NIL keeps a separate register of doctors and dentists who have been disciplined, and it is not open to the public: NIL releases information from it only on request, to a person or organisation that can show a legal interest in it. A clean-looking entry is not a statement that nothing has ever gone wrong.
• It says nothing about the clinic, its equipment, or how many implants the dentist has placed. Registration is the floor, not a measure of experience. Ask the dentist directly how long they have been placing implants.

5. Check the clinic as well — a different register

Poland keeps a separate register of every organisation that provides health services, the RPWDL (Rejestr Podmiotów Wykonujących Działalność Leczniczą). The Ministry of Health describes it as holding data on all entities that provide health services in Poland, mainly their address details and the range of services they provide. Search it at rpwdl.ezdrowie.gov.pl, and compare the name and address with the ones on your quote.

6. What to do with what you find

• Both checks match. A good sign, not a guarantee. Carry on with the rest of the checks in our general guide to checking a dentist abroad, and use the quote check to see whether your quote covers a finished tooth.
• The PWZ number fails the check-digit test, or finds nobody. Do not pay a deposit. Ask the clinic to confirm the number in writing.
• The entry records a restriction. Ask the clinic what it means, in writing, before you go any further.

How we use this. This is the same check we run against the register for the dentists at the Kraków clinics we assess. See how we vet →

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