How many people in New Jersey speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 3.08M people age 5 and older in New Jersey spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 3 New Jerseyans. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in New Jersey homes. About 52.1% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
3.08M
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
52.1%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in New Jersey speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of three languages: Spanish, Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese), or Hindi.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in New Jersey homes, followed by Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) and Hindi.
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 New Jersey, 3.08 million residents age 5 and older, or 34.3%, spoke a language other than English at home in 2024, compared with 23% nationally, and those speakers made up 4.2% of all non-English speakers in the US. Spanish was the most common non-English language in the state, spoken by 1.61 million people, followed by Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) at 138,300 and Hindi at 106,900, and Gujarati was the most concentrated language among US speakers in New Jersey, accounting for 16.1% of the nation’s Gujarati speakers. 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, New Jersey's residents were more likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 2.8% of the US's 5+ population lived in New Jersey, the state was home to 4.2% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that New Jersey had a disproportionately larger share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in New Jersey were Gujarati (16.1% of all US speakers), Polish (12.3%), and Hindi (10.1%).
In New Jersey, the state had the biggest population of Gujarati speakers in the US. About 79,351 Gujarati speakers lived in New Jersey, or 16.1% of the language’s 491,551 US speakers.
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Gujarati is the language for which New Jersey 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 New Jersey whose primary language at home is not English increased 16.1%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in New Jersey — grew 15.2% during this period.
In New Jersey, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 15.2% 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.
