Non-Hispanic countries with most Spanish speakers 2021

The United States is the non-hispanic country with the largest number of native Spanish speakers in the world, with approximately 41.76 million people with a native command of the language in 2021. However, the European Union had the largest group of non-native speakers with limited proficiency of Spanish, at around 25.98 million people. Furthermore, Mexico is the country with the largest number of native Spanish speakers in the world as of 2021.

Non-hispanic countries with the largest number of Spanish speakers worldwide in 2021, by competence (in 1,000s)

Characteristic	Native Domain Group	Limited Proficiency Group
United States**	41,757.39	15,000
European Union***	1,267	25,975
United Kingdom	133	4,824
Morocco	6.59	1,664.82
Canada	439.11	293
Brazil	460.02	96
Australia	117.5	374.57
Philippines****	4.48	461.69
Algeria*****	175	48
Belize	165.34	36

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Release date

2022

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Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2021*

Supplementary notes

Figures have been rounded.
* The date of data collection varies among the countries surveyed. The date of survey shown is the year of publication.
**NDG includes hispanic people who speak Spanish at home, as well as non-hispanic Americans who claim to speak Spanish at the domestic shpere. Those bellow the age of 5 are not included. LPG includes those hispanic excluded from the native group that, nevertheless, are assumed to have limited proficency and former students of Spanish. Non-authorized migrants from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean are not included.
***The LPG does not include the more than six million students of Spanish that are estimated in the EU.
****The LPG includes speakers of chabacano
*****NDG is mostly made up of Saharan refugees in Argelia.

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