Making an impression of an edentulous jaw is an essential part of producing a removable complete denture, because the proper functioning of the denture is partially dependent on the volume and form of the alveolar ridge and the surrounding soft tissue, in particular the musculature. Before the impression of the maxillary and mandibular jaw is made, insight into the anatomy of the maxilla and the mandible as well as the soft oral tissues is also essential. With respect to this, a 5-phase approach for the impressionmaking procedure is introduced, which gives guidelines for the fabrication of the preliminary impression, the preliminary cast, the individual impression tray, the final impression and the final cast. In each phase, the concern is to achieve the best possible stability of the denture. Adequate stability can only be achieved by determining the denture borders accurately.