The Top 8 Countries Where English Is Most Widely Spoken as a Second Language

English has a strange kind of citizenship problem. It belongs, officially, to only a handful of nations, yet it gets used daily by hundreds of millions of people who never learned it at home. Walk into a boardroom in Lagos, a call center in Manila, or a university lecture hall in Berlin, and there is a decent chance the conversation is happening in English, spoken fluently by people whose first language is something else entirely. That gap between where English “belongs” and where it actually gets used is where this list lives. Some of the countries below adopted English through colonial history, others through decades of deliberate education policy, and a few simply because their economies demanded it. What follows is a look at the eight nations where English functions least like a foreign language and most like a second mother tongue, based on population data and the best available language estimates.

1. India

By almost any measure, India is home to the largest population of second-language English speakers on the planet. India is, by almost any measure, home to the single largest population of second-language English speakers on the planet, with estimates ranging from 129 million proficient speakers to 265 million including basic users. That range says a lot about how difficult it is to count fluency in a country with more than a billion people and dozens of native tongues.

Although English is not the first language for most Indians, it is widely used in higher education, government administration, technology, and business communication, and this layered use alongside Hindi and regional languages has turned the country into a global hub for IT services and English-language education exports. Ethnologue’s most recent figures back up the scale of this reach, placing India second globally only to the United States in total English speakers, with the vast majority using it as a learned language rather than a mother tongue.

2. Pakistan

Pakistan sits just behind India in raw numbers, sharing a similar colonial linguistic legacy that left English embedded in law, education, and federal bureaucracy. According to Ethnologue, as of 2025 the United States and India have the most total English speakers, with 319 million and 276 million respectively, followed by Pakistan at 112 million. That places the country among the largest second-language English populations anywhere, trailing only a small handful of nations with far bigger overall populations.

Local reporting tends to describe the same phenomenon in different terms. One widely cited estimate found that English was deeply penetrated into Pakistani society, with 49 percent of the population, or 88.69 million people, able to speak it. English functions as a co-official language alongside Urdu, and it remains the dominant language of the courts and higher education even though it is a learned skill for nearly everyone who uses it.

3. Nigeria

Nigeria is Africa’s clearest example of a nation transformed by English as a bridge language rather than a birth language. Estimates of the country’s English-speaking population vary considerably depending on methodology, with some counts putting the figure as high as 125 million, while Ethnologue’s more conservative accounting places total speakers closer to 62 million. Either way, Nigeria’s sheer population size, now well over 200 million people, guarantees it a place among the countries with the largest second-language English communities anywhere on earth.

What makes Nigeria distinctive is how English operates alongside hundreds of indigenous languages rather than replacing them. It is the language of federal government, national media, and most higher education, serving as a practical common tongue in a country where no single native language commands a national majority. Lagos in particular has become something of a proving ground for Nigerian English, a variety with its own rhythms and slang that still functions comfortably in international business.

4. Philippines

Few countries have turned English proficiency into as visible an economic asset as the Philippines. English is co-official alongside Filipino, and the Philippines holds one of the largest total English-speaking populations in Asia at around 70 million speakers, with the language integral to public life. Schools teach heavily in English from an early age, and it shows up constantly in signage, media, and professional settings across the archipelago.

This widespread fluency has reshaped entire industries. The country’s strong language skills have aided its economy and even pushed the Philippines past India as the world’s top voice outsourcing destination in 2012, with call centers and business process outsourcing firms continuing to rely on this deep pool of English-speaking talent. On the EF English Proficiency Index, the Philippines scored 569 in the 2025 edition, a respectable mark that still trails several European nations where English carries no official status at all.

5. Germany

Germany represents Europe’s single biggest contribution to the global count of second-language English speakers, simply because of its large population combined with consistently strong outcomes. Germany posted one of the more striking improvements in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index, climbing to fourth place with a score of 615, a rise driven partly by an export-driven economy and dense network of multinational corporations that have made workplace English almost unavoidable for professionals. That combination of scale and skill sets Germany apart from smaller nations that rank higher on proficiency but contribute far fewer total speakers.

Surveys of European adults found that over 50 percent claimed to be able to converse in English as a foreign language in Germany, a notable figure given the country’s population of roughly 84 million people. German remains the everyday language for the overwhelming majority of citizens, but English has become the default language of academic publishing, tech startups, and international trade fairs from Frankfurt to Munich.

6. South Africa

South Africa offers a different model entirely, since English coexists with eleven other official languages while still functioning as the practical language of business, higher education, and much of government. Regional estimates suggest the country has around 16 million people who speak English, a large share of whom use it as an additional language rather than a first one across South Africa’s diverse population groups. That number looks modest next to India or Nigeria, but the depth of English’s role in daily institutional life is hard to overstate.

Proficiency scores back up this widespread secondary use rather convincingly. In the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index, South Africa tied for thirteenth place globally with a score of 602, landing it in the “Very High” proficiency band. That places the country among the strongest performers anywhere in the world, native or non-native, and reflects decades of English functioning as the connective tissue between communities that speak Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, and dozens of other home languages.

7. Bangladesh

Bangladesh rarely makes headlines for its English proficiency, yet it quietly hosts one of the larger second-language English populations in South Asia. Estimates put the country’s English-speaking population at around 29 million people, most of whom use it as a learned rather than native language. English remains a compulsory subject throughout the national curriculum and continues to serve as the primary language of higher education, particularly in law, medicine, and engineering.

The country’s relationship with English traces back to the same colonial administrative history shared with India and Pakistan, though its use is somewhat less pervasive in daily public life outside major cities. Dhaka’s private university sector, along with a fast-growing garment export industry that deals heavily with international buyers, has pushed workplace English into sharper focus over the past decade. Government efforts to expand English-medium instruction in secondary schools suggest the second-language population is likely to keep growing rather than plateau.

8. Kenya

Kenya rounds out this list as one of Africa’s stronger performers in both scale and measured proficiency. The country placed nineteenth globally in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index with a score of 593, comfortably inside the “Very High” band alongside several European nations. English serves as one of Kenya’s two official languages, working alongside Swahili as the primary language of instruction in secondary and higher education.

English functions as the main administrative language in Kenya, used extensively across government, courts, and formal business settings. That institutional weight, paired with a growing tech and outsourcing sector centered in Nairobi, has made Kenya something of an East African hub for English-language business services, drawing comparisons to the role the Philippines plays in Asia.

Taken together, these eight countries tell a fairly consistent story about scale and necessity. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya inherited English through colonial administration and then kept it as a practical tool for governing linguistically diverse populations, while the Philippines built an entire service economy around it and Germany simply added it on top of a strong domestic language for the sake of global trade. None of these nations speak English as a mother tongue for most citizens, yet together they account for hundreds of millions of speakers who use it every working day. What stands out most is how differently English took root in each place. In South Asia and Africa, it often survives as a colonial inheritance turned everyday necessity. In Germany, it arrived through economic pragmatism and a schooling system that treats English less like a subject and more like a basic professional skill. As global trade, remote work, and digital communication keep leaning on English as a working language, these eight countries look set to remain at the center of that story for a long time to come.