How many people in Connecticut speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 829,100 people age 5 and older in Connecticut spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 4 Connecticuters. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in Connecticut homes. About 54.7% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
829K
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
54.7%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in Connecticut speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of three languages: Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese).
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in Connecticut homes, followed by Portuguese and Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese).
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. In Connecticut, 829,100 people ages 5 and older spoke a language other than English in 2024, or 23.7% of the state’s population ages 5 and older, compared with 23% nationwide. Spanish was the most common non-English language, spoken by 453,400 people, followed by Portuguese and Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese). 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, Connecticut's residents were more likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 1.1% of the US's 5+ population lived in Connecticut, the state was home to 1.1% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that Connecticut had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in Connecticut were Polish (4.8% of all US speakers), Portuguese (3.9%), and Italian (3.7%).
In Connecticut, no non-English language had its largest US-speaking population in the state. Polish was the language for which Connecticut accounted for the largest share of US speakers, at 4.8%.
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Polish is the language for which Connecticut 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 Connecticut whose primary language at home is not English increased 10.4%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in Connecticut — grew 12.3% during this period.
In Connecticut, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 12.3% 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.
