The FTC noncompete ban never took effect: where associate and DSO non-competes stand now

What it says#

In April 2024 the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to issue a rule that would have made most employer noncompetes an unfair method of competition. Published in the Federal Register on May 7, 2024 as 16 CFR Part 910, it banned new noncompetes with any worker, declared existing ones with everyone but senior executives unenforceable, and required employers to tell affected workers so by the effective date. The Commission estimated that about 30 million workers were under a noncompete. The rule was to take effect September 4, 2024.

It did not. On August 20, 2024, in Ryan, LLC v. FTC, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that the FTC had exceeded its statutory authority and that the rule was arbitrary and capricious, and set it aside under the Administrative Procedure Act. The court's earlier July order had protected only the parties to that case; the August judgment set the rule aside for everyone. The FTC appealed to the Fifth Circuit on October 18, 2024, and a parallel case out of Florida, Properties of the Villages v. FTC, went up to the Eleventh Circuit.

On September 5, 2025 the Commission voted 3-1 to dismiss both appeals and accede to the vacatur. Its rule page now reads: "The Noncompete Rule is not in effect and it is not enforceable." On February 12, 2026 the FTC published a notice removing Part 910 from the Code of Federal Regulations, describing the step as "simply undertaking the ministerial task of conforming these Rules to the results ordered by the circuit courts."

What the FTC kept is its older tool. The same week it dropped the appeals, it announced a proposed order against a pet-cremation company, Gateway Services, freeing nearly 1,800 employees from noncompetes (the final order was approved November 26, 2025), and on September 10, 2025 its chairman sent letters to large healthcare employers and staffing companies urging them to review their noncompetes and other restrictive agreements, citing the Commission's authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to investigate agreements that are "unjustified, overbroad, or otherwise unfair or anticompetitive." The letters name nurses and physicians and point at rural markets where a restriction on a clinician narrows patients' choices. A workshop on the subject followed on January 27, 2026.

Who it applies to#

As a rule, no one. There is no federal ban on noncompetes, and there was never a day on which one was in force. Whether the non-compete in your associate agreement, your DSO employment contract, or the purchase agreement for the practice you bought will hold depends on the state.

That state answer moved in 2025 in ways that reach dentists by name. Colorado's SB25-083, signed June 3, 2025 and effective August 6, 2025, makes covenants that restrict the practice of medicine, advanced practice registered nursing, or dentistry void, and also stops an employer from barring a departing provider from telling patients where they are going. Texas's SB 1318, effective September 1, 2025, extends the limits it had already placed on physician noncompetes to dentists, professional and vocational nurses, and physician assistants: a covenant entered into or renewed on or after that date must provide for a buyout of no more than the practitioner's total annual salary and wages at termination, expire within a year of the end of the contract or employment, and reach no farther than five miles from where the practitioner primarily practiced. Other states restrict noncompetes for everyone, and some list physicians and nurses without mentioning dentists, which is its own trap: a clause your physician friend cannot be held to may still bind you.

The sale-of-business covenant is a different animal. The FTC rule excluded it from the start, and states usually handle it under separate provisions; Colorado's new law, for example, allows a covenant against a selling minority owner only for a number of years set by a formula tied to the sale price and the owner's pay. A non-compete you gave when you sold, or took when you bought, is judged on the older reasonableness questions of radius, duration and consideration.

What changed#

Between April and August 2024 many practices redrafted contracts, sent or prepared the required notices, or held off on new hires' restrictive covenants. None of that was required in the end. Contracts written in that window sometimes carry language keyed to the rule (a notice clause, a senior-executive definition tied to the $151,164 threshold) that no longer means anything.

What did change is the enforcement posture. The FTC under its current chairman has said it will go after noncompetes it considers anticompetitive one employer at a time, and it chose healthcare as the first sector to write to. For a single-office practice that is a remote risk; for a group with hundreds of clinical employees and a form contract, it is the kind of thing an attorney should read once.

The bigger movement is in the states, and it is still moving: the Colorado and Texas changes above are both 2025 laws. This page will be updated as states add or amend dentist-specific limits.

Where the source is#

The FTC's rule page in its legal library carries the current status statement and links to each step in the litigation; the September 5, 2025 press release records the vote to accede to the vacatur, and the February 12, 2026 Federal Register notice, available on govinfo, is the formal removal. The 2024 rule itself is at 89 FR 38342. The Colorado and Texas examples come from the enrolled bills on the state legislatures' sites; neither is a substitute for a reading of your own state's statute.