How many people in Minnesota speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 719,100 people age 5 and older in Minnesota spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 8 Minnesotans. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in Minnesota homes. About 34.2% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
719K
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
34.2%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in Minnesota speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of three languages: Spanish, Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages, or Hmong.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in Minnesota homes, followed by Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages and Hmong.
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, Minnesota's residents were less likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 1.7% of the US's 5+ population lived in Minnesota, the state was home to 0.97% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that Minnesota had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in Minnesota were Hmong (31.7% of all US speakers), Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages (17.3%), and Other Native languages of North America (4.0%).
In Minnesota, the state had the biggest population of speakers of 2 non-English languages, including Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages (110,296 residents or 17.3%), and Hmong (73,033 or 31.7%).
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Hmong is the language for which Minnesota 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 Minnesota whose primary language at home is not English increased 12.0%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in Minnesota — grew 16.4% during this period.
In Minnesota, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 16.4% 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.
