How many people in California speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 16.9M people age 5 and older in California spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 2 Californians. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in California homes. About 63.5% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
16.9M
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
63.5%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in California speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of 42 languages: Spanish, Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese), or Tagalog (incl. Filipino).
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in California homes, followed by Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) and Tagalog (incl. Filipino).
People aged 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home, by language group (2024)
The ACS asks people if they speak a language other than English at home, what that language is, and how well they speak English. This data determines bilingual election requirements under the Voting Rights Act and has also been used to allocate funds for students with lower English proficiency.
Based on data from 2024, California's residents were more likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 11.6% of the US's 5+ population lived in California, the state was home to 22.9% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that California had a disproportionately larger share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in California were Armenian (82.9% of all US speakers), Punjabi (48.8%), and Persian (incl. Farsi, Dari) (46.2%).
In California, the state had the biggest population of speakers of 18 non-English languages, including Spanish (10,754,818 residents or 24.0% of US speakers), Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) (1,334,399 or 35.7%), Tagalog (incl. Filipino) (820,806 or 42.7%), Vietnamese (559,609 or 35.0%), Korean (350,520 or 30.5%), Persian (incl. Farsi, Dari) (263,138 or 46.2%), Hindi (253,073 or 23.9%), Arabic (223,882 or 15.1%), Armenian (222,071 or 82.9%), Punjabi (186,435 or 48.8%), Japanese (132,602 or 28.1%), German (84,819 or 9.7%), Other languages of Asia (72,213 or 13.5%), Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages (71,808 or 23.9%), Nepali, Marathi, or other Indic languages (71,650 or 14.1%), Ukrainian or other Slavic languages (69,231 or 13.0%), Tamil (67,236 or 18.7%), and Khmer (63,945 or 33.5%).
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Armenian is the language for which California makes up the largest share of US speakers
State share of national speakers by language, ages 5 and older (2024)
Population change
The US population gained 1.78 million people between 2024 and 2025.
Between 2018 and 2024, the number of people in California whose primary language at home is not English increased 2.3%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in California — grew 0.2% during this period.
In California, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 0.2% since 2018
Non-English language speakers ages 5 and older at home, by broad language group
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Methodology
USAFacts standardizes data, in areas such as time and demographics, to make it easier to understand and compare.
Page sources
USAFacts endeavors to share the most up-to-date information available. We sourced the data on this page directly from government agencies; however, the intervals at which agencies publish updated data vary.
