How many people in North Carolina speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 1.5M people age 5 and older in North Carolina spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 7 North Carolinians. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in North Carolina homes. About 63.8% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
1.5M
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
63.8%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in North Carolina speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of three languages: Spanish, Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese), or Telugu.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in North Carolina homes, followed by Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) and Telugu.
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 North Carolina, 1.5 million people ages 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, or 14.4% of the state’s population in that age group, compared with 23% nationally. Spanish is the most common non-English language, spoken by 956,500 people, followed by Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) and Telugu. 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, North Carolina's residents were less likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 3.2% of the US's 5+ population lived in North Carolina, the state was home to 2% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that North Carolina had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in North Carolina were Telugu (5.8% of all US speakers), Hmong (4.7%), and Tamil (4.1%).
In North Carolina, no non-English language had its largest US-speaking population in the state. Telugu was the language for which North Carolina accounted for the largest share of US speakers, at 5.8%.
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Telugu is the language for which North Carolina 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 North Carolina whose primary language at home is not English increased 27.2%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in North Carolina — grew 25.7% during this period.
In North Carolina, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 25.7% 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.
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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.
