National guidance from the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM Report 91) currently recommends that the patient dose for a panoral X-ray unit is measured as dose area product (DAP) replacing dose width product described in earlier guidance. An investigation identifying different methods available to carry out this measurement has been undertaken and errors in the methodologies analysed. It has been shown that there may be up to a 30 % variation in DAP measurement between methods. This paper recommends that where possible a DAP meter is used to measure the dose-area product from a panoral X-ray unit to give a direct DAP measurement. However, by using a solid-state dose measurement and film/ruler to calculate DAP the authors have established a conversion factor of 1.4. It is strongly recommended that wherever a DAP value is quoted the methodology used to obtain that value is also reported.