The short answer
Yes, in the literal sense. A veneer requires enamel to be removed, and enamel is the one part of the body that does not repair or replace itself. From the day it is prepared, that tooth needs a covering permanently.
Most pages on this subject soften that, because the clinic writing them is selling veneers. We do them too. It is still the thing you should know first.
What is actually taken away
Between a third and half a millimetre from the front surface, which is roughly the thickness of the porcelain going back on. That is far less than a crown, which takes one to two millimetres from every side, and it is not nothing.
Enamel is about a millimetre and a half thick on a front tooth, so a veneer preparation is removing somewhere around a quarter to a third of it. The tooth underneath is not injured, but it is no longer a tooth that can stand alone.
What that commits you to
Three things follow, and they follow for life:
Replacement, repeatedly. Ten to fifteen years per set is the realistic figure. Somebody having veneers at twenty five should expect to pay for them three or four more times.
No going back to the natural tooth. The option that existed before the preparation does not exist afterwards. Every future choice is between a veneer and a crown.
Cleaning that matters more. The join at the gum line is where decay starts on a veneered tooth. The porcelain will not decay. The tooth at its edge will.
What does not damage your teeth
Two things achieve a large part of what most people want, and take nothing away:
Whitening. Changes the colour only. It can make the teeth sensitive for a few days and that passes. It removes no tooth structure whatsoever and it can be repeated in ten years.
Alignment. Moving teeth with braces or aligners changes the position without touching the surface. It takes months rather than weeks, which is the reason it is often skipped in favour of porcelain, and it is the reason to be suspicious when it is.
If colour and crowding are your complaints, these two together do most of the job of a Hollywood smile and leave your teeth intact.
When veneers are worth it anyway
Plenty of cases. A tooth that is genuinely misshapen, one that is discoloured from the inside where whitening cannot reach, a chipped edge, teeth worn short by years of grinding, a gap that alignment alone would not close well.
In those situations the enamel is buying something real that no reversible treatment can deliver, and that is a fair trade made with open eyes.
The bad version is the healthy, even, slightly yellow set of teeth prepared for ten veneers because a photograph was shown and a price was quoted. That is the one this page exists to slow down.
If you want the comparison with the heavier option, it is on veneers or crowns.