EF English Proficiency Index 2025: Where Does Your Country Rank?

EF English Proficiency Index 2025 Results

The English Proficiency Index is released every year with rankings of speaking skills for 123 different countries and regions around the world. This data is not only released every year with different indicators but is also tracked over time to see how English ability might change by region or by other demographic markers as well.

To start out our analysis, let’s see what the top 15 countries were at English proficiency:

1. Netherlands
2. Croatia
3. Austria
4. Germany
5. Norway
6. Portugal
7. Denmark
8. Sweden
9. Belgium
10. Slovakia
11. Romania
12. Finland
13. South Africa (tied for 13th)
14. Zimbabwe (tied for 13th)
15. Poland

That’s right! The Netherlands came in first for English proficiency in 2025! And it’s followed by many European countries to take the rest of the top 15, but did you expect the countries that tied for 13th place? A fun fact is that many of these countries are holding this ranking for the second year in a row.

We can also see the countries with the lowest English proficiency for 2025. In a similar capacity, many of these countries have maintained their current ranking:

113. Benin
115. Saudi Arabia
116. Thailand (tied for 116th)
116. Yemen (tied for 116th)
118. Democratic Republic of Congo
119. Somalia
120. Togo
121. Libya
122. Côte d’Ivoire
123. Cambodia

But if you’re still not seeing your country and would like to see where they rank, have a deeper look at the numbers and rankings:

Longitudinal English Proficiency

Tracking this data over time isn’t just useful for rankings or for bragging rights. We can actually learn things by tracking this information over time. For example, we can see how different regions of the world have changed over time. From 2011-2025, we see large improvements in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East while during that same time we can see that Asia had a sharp increase but has since returned closer to their previous numbers. Even with partial data, we can see how Africa has changed over time and still improved during the time that we have.

In these responses we can also see a breakdown by age groups over time. Something that was particularly surprising to me was that despite social media and internet use, English proficiency among the age group 18-20 has decreased drastically in the last 10 years. And we can actually see the strongest increase for people aged 31-40 over that same period of time. Who would have thought!

And perhaps most interesting, we can track English proficiency trends across gender as well. As you can see, there was previously a gap where women were more proficient at English than men, with a cross over around 2020 and then a higher proficiency among men. However, in the last couple years, we see that the gap has come back together again.

How to Improve Your Language Proficiency

Whether you’re trying to learn a new language or just improve your English level, there are some strategies that make your learning process easier. We’d recommend adding these three modern and effective tactics:

1. Try the 80/20 Rule

Focus your efforts on learning the 20% of vocabulary that you’ll use in 80% of circumstances. This language learning method, inspired by the Pareto Principle, is the best way to learn quickly. For more on the Pareto Principle, check out our article on how you can apply it to your language learning.

2. Use Interactive Learning Tools

Watch shows, listen to podcasts, and read in your target language. Any and all of these are some of the most effective ways to improve your language abilities. Introduce different tools in your life that you can interact with and actively get exposure to your language.

3. Practice Daily

Even if you only spend 10 minutes learning a language per day, over the course of the month you’ll be able to learn hundreds of vocabulary words. With the help of different learning apps, you can combine interactive activities with memorization to learn even faster. And if you’d like to find all of these tactics already put in a single app, try out MosaLingua for short, personalized lessons to get you to fluency faster.

MosaLingua: An All-in-One Language Learning Tool

With MosaLingua, you’ll have all of the best learning approaches combined into one app that you can carry with you on your phone. By using the best approaches available to you, backed by science, you’ll benefit from:

• Long-term memorization techniques so you can memorize vocabulary for the long run
• Personalized and interactive lessons that are adapted to your goals and your learning speed
• Various resources for working on your speaking skills as well as writing and grammar
• Add-ons for making videos more accessible or accessing our virtual AI tutor

MosaLingua offers learning for 11 different languages plus additional apps for business-specific vocabulary in several different languages. This is especially important since so many fields are using English, with these fields using English the most according to the EF English Proficiency this year:

Proficiency around the World

No matter where you are and what language(s) you already know, there is always room to grow in our understanding of others and our understanding of languages. These numbers, while interesting, primarily serve as useful tools to see where language levels are at and where learning can be improved. But with modern technology, and constant improvements in our understanding of how people learn, we can all improve our linguistic levels. So let’s get ready for 2026 and see just how much we can accomplish!