Official languages of the EU

This information is only available in EN for the moment. Other language versions will be added shortly.
The European Union has 24 official and working languages. They are:

Bulgarian	French	Maltese
Croatian	German	Polish
Czech	Greek	Portuguese
Danish	Hungarian	Romanian
Dutch	Irish	Slovak
English	Italian	Slovene
Estonian	Latvian	Spanish
Finnish	Lithuanian	Swedish

The first official language policy of what was then the European Community identified Dutch, French, German, and Italian as the official working languages of the EU.
Since then, as more countries have become part of the EU, the number of official and working languages has increased. However, there are fewer official languages than Member States, as some share common languages.
On the other hand, some regional languages, such as Catalan and Welsh, have gained a status as co-official languages of the European Union. The official use of such languages can be authorised on the basis of an administrative arrangement concluded between the Council and the requesting Member State.

Find out more

• • Languages in the EU at a glance , including texts and audio clips
  • The Directorate General for Translation
  • The Directorate General for Interpretation . More...