About Tooth Numbering Chart

Who the site is for

The site is written for patients with a piece of paper in their hand. Each of these lists teeth by number:

• a quote,
• a receipt for a health fund claim,
• a note from a school dental check,
• an X ray report.

Few people are ever shown how those numbers work. Dental students and dental assistants use the tables too, mostly to check a Universal number against FDI.

How the tables were made

The script that builds this site makes every table and the chart from one list of 52 teeth: 32 adult and 20 baby.

• Each tooth has a quarter and a position. The FDI number is those two digits side by side.
• The Universal and Palmer numbers are worked out from the same two digits with fixed rules.
• For example, an upper right adult tooth in position 6 becomes Universal 3, because Universal counts from 1 at the upper right wisdom tooth.
• The tool on the chart page uses the same rules, written in one small script that runs in your browser and sends nothing.

The chart and the tables are written into each page as plain HTML, so each page works on its own. Because the build script makes them all from the same list each time it runs, they match when the site is rebuilt.

We checked the results by hand against the published lists for each system. We spot checked the teeth that are easy to get wrong: 11 and 21 mean different teeth in FDI and Universal, and the baby molars are letters in two systems.

The surface letters and the item numbers on the treatment plan page come from the Australian Dental Association schedule, 13th edition, read in full from the copy the association publishes.

What is on each page

• The chart page has the tap chart, a lookup box that takes a number in any of the three systems, and full tables for adult and baby teeth.
• The FDI vs Universal page explains how each system counts, gives four short rules for turning an FDI number into a Universal one, and lists every tooth in all three systems.
• The treatment plan page shows how an Australian plan line is built: the item number, the tooth number and the surface letters, with a worked example.

The lookup box needs JavaScript to run. Every table works without it, and every page prints on plain paper.

What the site does not do

The site names teeth and explains paperwork.

• It does not say what a tooth needs.
• It does not rate any dentist or plan itself, and it does not quote prices.
• The Dental Link line on the home page uses Dental Link's own description, and the reasons that follow it are what Dental Link publishes.

If a number on your plan worries you, ask the dentist who wrote it to show you the tooth.

How the site earns money

The one partner this site names is Dental Link, a concierge that matches people with dental clinics in Vietnam.

• If you choose to use Dental Link after reading here, this site can earn money from that.
• The chart, the tables and the guides stay free whether or not you use a partner.
• No partner pays to change a number in a table.

Updates

The site was first published on 11 November 2026. When the ADA puts out a new schedule edition, the item table on the treatment plan page will be checked against it, and the date on each changed page will move.