How many people in Oregon speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 627,300 people age 5 and older in Oregon spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 6 Oregonians. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in Oregon homes. About 59.6% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
627K
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
59.6%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in Oregon speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of 3 languages: Spanish, Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese), or Vietnamese.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in Oregon homes, followed by Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) and Vietnamese.
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 Oregon, 627,300 people age 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, or 15.4% of the state’s population age 5 and older; Spanish is the most common non-English language, spoken by 373,800 people, followed by Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) and Vietnamese. 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, Oregon's residents were less likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 1.3% of the US's 5+ population lived in Oregon, the state was home to 0.85% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that Oregon had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in Oregon were Japanese (2.6% of all US speakers), Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages (2.2%), and Hmong (2.1%).
In Oregon, no non-English language had its largest US-speaking population in the state. Japanese was the language for which Oregon accounted for the largest share of US speakers, at 2.6%.
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Japanese is the language for which Oregon 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 Oregon whose primary language at home is not English decreased 0.6%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in Oregon — grew 0.8% during this period.
In Oregon, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 0.8% 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.
