Braces, aligners and crowns: which comes first?

A lot of people who ask about crowns are really asking about crooked teeth. The front ones overlap a bit, one sits further back, there is a gap, or the bottom teeth have crowded together since school. Crowns can hide all of that, which is why they are popular in before-and-after videos. But there is another way to get straight teeth, and it does not involve filing anything down: move the teeth.

This article is about how those two approaches fit together. When to straighten first, what happens if you already have crowns, and why the order matters if you are planning a crown trip.

Why crowns are a blunt tool for crooked teeth

A crown wraps right round the tooth above the gum. Because the technician designs the outside shape, a crown can be made a little further forward, further back or more upright than the tooth underneath. That is how a row of uneven teeth can look straight once crowned.

The problem is space. A tooth that sticks out has to be trimmed much more on its front surface so the crown can sit back in line. A tooth that is tucked behind its neighbours may need more taken off the sides. So the further a tooth has strayed, the bigger the share of it that ends up being removed to fake a straight line. Our page on what happens to your teeth under a crown explains why that loss is permanent.

The BBC tested this in 2022 by sending photos of a presenter's slightly uneven lower teeth to clinics through Instagram. Seventy of the 120 Turkish clinics that replied suggested treatment that involved shaving down natural teeth, such as crowns or veneers. None of the 34 UK clinics that replied suggested crowns or veneers; some suggested aligners or composite bonding instead. The point is not that one country is good and the other bad. It is that the same small problem can be answered with very different amounts of drilling, and you are entitled to ask which one you are being offered.

What straightening does differently

Braces and clear aligners move the whole tooth, root and all, through the bone. When treatment is finished, the tooth is in a better position and still has all its enamel. The NHS notes that adults can have braces, usually privately, and that fixed braces typically stay on for one to two years. Aligners are removable trays that do the same job in small steps.

Dentists who plan smile makeovers often start from this point. A well-known paper by a restorative dentist, an orthodontist and a periodontist working together argued that front-tooth aesthetic problems should be diagnosed as a whole, starting with how the teeth look and then checking structure, function and gum health, with orthodontics and gum treatment used where the restorative dentist cannot fix the problem alone. In practice that often means moving teeth before deciding whether any of them need covering.

For many people, straightening turns out to be enough. Straight teeth with a little bonding on a chipped edge can look better than a row of crowns, and you keep your own teeth. Where crowns are still needed, perhaps because a tooth is broken, heavily filled or root-filled, the crowns can be made with far less trimming once the tooth is in the right place. If your worry is a small or oddly shaped tooth, our article on peg-shaped lateral incisors shows how orthodontics and restorations are often combined.

The usual order: straighten, retain, then crown

If you need both, the sequence normally goes like this:

• Check-up and X-rays. Decay and gum disease are dealt with before any teeth are moved.
• Straightening. Braces or aligners, with regular reviews. The NHS describes orthodontist appointments every six to eight weeks for fixed braces.
• Retention. Teeth tend to drift back after treatment. A Cochrane review of retention methods says that without a phase of retention, teeth tend to relapse towards where they started, which is why retainers are fitted afterwards.
• Crowns, if still needed. Made to fit the final, stable position.

Why not the other way round? Because a crown is shaped to fit the teeth beside it and the teeth it bites against. If you have crowns made and then straighten, the crowns move with the roots into a new position, and their shape, contacts with the next teeth and bite may no longer be right. In some cases the result is that new crowns are needed, which means paying twice and losing a little more tooth each time.

If you already have crowns and want aligners

Plenty of adults with one or two crowns go through orthodontic treatment. The crown is fixed to the tooth, so when the root moves, the crown goes with it. The part that needs care is the attachment.

Brace brackets are glued onto the front of each tooth. Clear aligners usually need small tooth-coloured bumps, called attachments, bonded to some teeth so the trays can grip and push. Glue sticks well to etched enamel. Ceramic crowns are different, and the bonding method has to change.

• E-max and other glass-ceramics. A laboratory study of aligner attachments bonded to lithium disilicate (the material in E-max crowns) found that roughening the surface with air abrasion or hydrofluoric acid, combined with the right bonding agent and composite, gave the strongest bonds.
• Zirconia. Zirconia does not etch the way glass-ceramics do. A lab comparison of brackets on zirconia and lithium disilicate found bond strength was broadly similar between groups, but that hydrofluoric acid could weaken the ceramic surface and might not be the best conditioner, especially for zirconia.

These are lab results, not long-term studies in real mouths, but they explain what your orthodontist will want to know: which teeth are crowned and what the crowns are made of. If you are not sure, a copy of your old dental notes or crown plan will usually say. Our guide to reading tooth numbers helps you decode it.

When the brackets or attachments come off at the end, the glue is polished away. On a crown, the surface may need repolishing, and the same lab study recorded some surface damage depending on how the ceramic was prepared. Occasionally an older crown is replaced afterwards because it is marked, or simply because the tooth now sits in a new position and the crown shape no longer suits it. It is worth asking about that possibility at the start.

Aligners by post

Home aligner kits are heavily advertised on the same apps as crown videos. The General Dental Council's advice for patients is that the traditional way is to be seen in person before orthodontic treatment, because some conditions make aligners unsafe and may not be spotted without an examination, recent X-rays and a medical history. If a provider has not seen you in person, the GDC suggests asking them to explain why you do not need a check-up.

This matters even more if you have crowns. An existing crown with decay at the edge, or a root-filled tooth with an infection, is something to sort out before you start moving teeth.

What this means for a crown trip

Orthodontic treatment takes many months and involves regular reviews, which suits a clinic near home. A crown trip is the opposite: one visit, a few days in the chair, and then home. With us, a zirconia crown trip is one visit of around five hotel nights. That makes the sensible order quite simple. Straighten at home first, wear your retainer, and then decide whether any crowns are still needed.

If you are in your twenties or thirties, the case for straightening first is even stronger. Crowns do not last forever, and our article on crowns in your 20s and 30s goes through what that means over a lifetime. A tooth you have moved rather than crowned has no replacement cycle at all.

Sometimes straightening is not possible or not wanted. Perhaps the teeth are already heavily restored, or the bite problem is small and the teeth need crowns anyway for other reasons. In those cases a crown plan that slightly improves alignment can be reasonable, as long as the trimming needed is explained tooth by tooth. Our crowns vs veneers page covers the lighter options.

Questions to ask before you agree to crowns on crooked teeth

• Would straightening solve this without crowns?
• If I straightened first, how many teeth would still need crowns?
• How much more of each tooth has to be removed because it is out of line?
• If I have crowns now and want aligners later, what will happen to the crowns?
• Which of these teeth are healthy apart from their position?

Getting an honest answer

If your teeth are crooked and you are not sure whether you need crowns at all, send us your X-rays and a few smile photos. Our free written plan will tell you which teeth we think need crowns, which do not, and whether straightening first would be the better route. We prefer to protect a healthy tooth rather than crown it, and that includes telling you when an orthodontist near home is the right next step.

Common questions

Can crowns straighten crooked teeth?

They can make teeth look straighter, because the technician can build a crown in a slightly different place from the tooth underneath. The catch is that a tooth sitting out of line has to be trimmed more on one side to make room, so more natural tooth is lost. Moving the tooth with braces or aligners avoids that.

Can I have aligners if I already have crowns?

Usually, yes. The root moves, and the crown moves with it. Aligner attachments and brace brackets can be bonded to ceramic crowns, although the surface needs special preparation and may need polishing or, occasionally, the crown replacing afterwards. Tell your orthodontist exactly which teeth are crowned and what they are made of.

Should I get crowns in Turkey and braces later?

Usually the other way round. Crowns are shaped to fit your bite and the teeth next to them. If those teeth then move, the crowns may no longer fit the new position. Straighten first, keep your retainer, then plan any crowns.

Can I do aligner treatment and a crown trip at the same time?

Not really. Orthodontic treatment involves regular check-ups over many months, which suits a clinic near home. A crown trip is a single visit, so it is easier to do once the teeth are in their final position.

Will I need crowns at all after straightening?

Often not, or fewer than you expected. Many people find that straight teeth plus whitening or a little bonding is enough. Teeth that are broken, heavily filled or root-filled may still need crowns. A free written plan will say which.

Sources

1. NHS. Braces
2. General Dental Council. Aligners or braces sent directly to your home
3. Spear FM, Kokich VG, Mathews DP (2006). Interdisciplinary management of anterior dental esthetics. Journal of the American Dental Association
4. Mehmeti B et al. (2019). Comparison of shear bond strength of orthodontic brackets bonded to zirconia and lithium disilicate crowns. Acta Stomatologica Croatica
5. Alsaud BA et al. (2022). Bonding of clear aligner composite attachments to ceramic materials: an in vitro study. Materials (Basel)
6. Martin C et al. (2023). Retention procedures for stabilising tooth position after treatment with orthodontic braces. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
7. BBC News (2022). Turkey teeth: Are cut-price reality TV teeth worth it?

Checked October 2026. Where we give our own view as a clinic, we say so.