Estimate of population with limited English proficiency for the state and counties

At the request of a cross-agency working group headed by the Governor's Interagency Council on Health Disparities, OFM has produced these estimates at both the state and county level.

Purpose

Understanding what languages are spoken across the state, and the number of individuals who speak a given language, is critical to ensuring language access to important information for all Washingtonians. The Washington State Office of Financial Management created the Limited English Proficiency Population Estimate to provide estimate Limited English Proficiency populations across the state. Users are advised that these estimates are not actual counts of the Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population nor are they intended to substitute for counts. Rather they were created to help meet the access and planning needs of state agencies in providing language access.

Providing language access is a requirement for all organizations and agencies that receive federal financial assistance. Therefore, this requirement applies to nearly all state agencies, local governments and more. To meet this requirement, the Department of Justice provides the Safe Harbor provision which recommends translating vital information into every language that is used by 5% of the population or 1,000 people (whichever is less).

The Limited English Proficiency Population Estimates can be used to understand what languages at both the state and county levels meet the Safe Harbor Threshold. Some state agencies, including the Department of Health, use this list as a baseline for translating vital information. More recently, the COVID-19 Language Access Plan for the Washington State Coronavirus Response required that all cabinet agencies translate vital documents into the 36+ languages identified by the 2016 OFM analysis.

To learn more about how the 2024 estimates were created, please read about the methodology [PDF]. 

Ongoing work

We recognize that language to place of birth pairings may be inaccurate and not represent all language speakers. This methodology was determined to be the best approach with the limited data and resources available. In the future, this methodology will be revisited to better reflect how individuals identify.

We are continuing to evaluate this language estimate methodology. We welcome and appreciate feedback on the methodology and the place of birth pairings used for the OSPI based language estimates. Please email your feedback to ofm.forecasting@ofm.wa.gov. We will incorporate your feedback into future estimates and/or revise the estimates as appropriate.

Disclaimer: By using these data the user agrees that the Washington State Office of Financial Management shall not be liable for any activity involving these data regarding lost profits or savings or any other consequential damages; or the fitness for use of the data for a particular purpose; or the installation of the data, its use, or the results obtained.

• Estimates: 2024 [Excel] | Methodology [PDF]
• Estimates: 2021 [Excel] | Methodology [PDF]
• Earlier estimates: 2014 [Excel] | 2016 [Excel] | Methodology [PDF]

Other limited English proficiency resources

The American Community Survey (ACS) is also a resource of Limited Proficiency Estimates. These estimates are based on survey data. One of the advantages of using the ACS is that it has limited English proficiency estimates for geographies beyond the state and county. However, the ACS limits the language detail to static categories based on the United States as a whole and combines many languages into aggregate groups such as “Russian, Polish, or other Slavic languages” or “Other Indo-European languages.” Users will need to evaluate whether this detail meets their needs.

When using ACS data, consider the margin of error. Many LEP language groups are small, and the margin of error can be relatively large compared to the size of the estimate.

The ACS has numerous tables on language and the ability to speak English. The tables that provide the most language detail are B16001 or C16001: Language Spoken at Home by Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over.

• State
• County
• City/town/census designated place (the table is too big to display so you will need to downlaod it.)
• Combined statistical area
• Congressional district
• Metropolitan division within metropolitan statistical area
• Public use microdata area (see map of Washington state's public use microdata areas)
• State legislative district

Once a decade the Census Bureau produces a detailed table using ACS data listing the top 15 languages spoken in each state. In 2025 they released the latest file titled: Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2017-2021. The languages listed are allowed to vary from the static list available from the standard ACS release. The prior release can be found here: Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English 2009-2013.