Congratulations in Spanish: A Complete Guide for Language Learners

There are many milestones to celebrate in life: births, birthdays, graduations, promotions, weddings, buying a house… You name it! We all love to share the joy of these achievements, so we’re sure you are curious about how to celebrate them in Spanish.

In this article, we will cover how to say congratulations in Spanish for every occasion. We’ll start with the classics you can use anytime. We will then go over some options for specific achievements or moments in life. Let’s start celebrating together!

“Congratulations” in Spanish: keeping it simple

There are many ways to congratulate someone on their various achievements. However, we’ll start with the most common and simplest ways to congratulate someone in Spanish in this section. We will get to specific and more detailed examples in the next few sections.

The classics: ¡Felicitaciones! ¡Enhorabuena! ¡Felicidades!

These are the three most common ways to say “congratulations” in Spanish. You can use these to congratulate someone for any achievement or special occasion.

Felicitaciones is the closest equivalent to the English ‘congratulations.’

While enhorabuena and felicidades carry the same overall meaning, they are a bit different. Felicidades stems from the word felicidad, meaning ‘happiness.’ Therefore, by using this term, you are wishing the other person or persons happiness.

You can also intensify this term by using muchas (many) for some extra cheer: ¡Muchas felicidades!

Meanwhile, enhorabuena is made up of three words: en, hora, and buena. These words literally translate to ‘at a good time.’ This variation is also more commonly used in Spain, while felicitaciones and felicidades are the standard in Latin America.

¡Te felicito!

This is a more personal way to congratulate someone. For this, we use the verb felicitar (to congratulate) preceded by a pronoun indicating the person or persons you are congratulating.

You would use ¡Te felicito! for ‘I congratulate you,’ singular, informal, ¡Os felicito! for ‘I congratulate you,’ plural informal in Spain, and ¡Los/as felicito! for ‘I congratulate you,’ plural informal in Latin America.

This construction sounds a bit awkward in English, but it’s pretty standard in Spanish.

If you have questions about the formal and informal forms of you in Spanish, have a look at this article.

Me alegro por ti.

This phrase is the equivalent of ‘I’m happy for you.’ It works very similarly to its English counterpart and offers a perhaps more heartfelt alternative to say “congratulations” in Spanish.

Me alegro por ti is used for just one person. If you are congratulating two or more people, you can say Me alegro por vosotros in Spain or Me alegro por ustedes in Latin America.

¡Salud!

Literally meaning ‘health,’ this is the equivalent of ‘Cheers!’ You can use it when you are out celebrating and propose a toast, just like in English.

In Spanish, we also use the onomatopoeia chinchín to accompany a toast.

“Congratulations” in Spanish: birthdays

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to put them into context. This section includes examples of how to say “Congratulations” in Spanish for birthdays. We will start with the most common way to congratulate someone on their birthday and continue with some additional phrases.

• ¡Feliz cumpleaños! (Happy birthday!)
• ¡Feliz cumple! (This is a more informal and widespread shortened version of ‘cumpleaños’)
• ¡Felicidades en tu día! (Congratulations on your day!)
• ¡Que cumplas muchos más! (To many more!)
• Espero que tengas un día muy especial. (I hope you have a very special day.)
• ¡Que tengas un gran día! (Have a great day!)

The birthday song is always good to have up your sleeve if you are celebrating someone’s birthday in Spanish. There are three lyric variations of the song. There is Cumpleaños feliz (Happy birthday) in Spain, Que lo cumplas feliz (May you have a happy birthday) in Uruguay, and Feliz cumpleaños a ti (Happy birthday to you) in Peru. Here is the traditional version of the song, and here is a bilingual mariachi version for added fun!

“Congratulations” in Spanish: weddings and anniversaries

Relationships are another area of life that calls for celebration. Here are some ways to congratulate your loved ones on their wedding or anniversary.

Weddings

• ¡Felicidades por su boda! (Congratulations on your wedding!)
• ¡Felicidades a los recién casados! (Congratulations to the newlyweds!)
• ¡Les deseo toda la felicidad del mundo! (I wish you both all the happiness in the world!)
• ¡Felicidades en esta nueva etapa de sus vidas! (Congratulations on this new stage of your lives!)
• ¡Que vivan felices por siempre! (May you live happily ever after!)

Anniversaries

• ¡Feliz aniversario! (Happy anniversary!)
• ¡Por muchos años más juntos! (To many more years together!)
• ¡Que sigan cumpliendo muchos más juntos! (May you have many more years together!)

“Congratulations” in Spanish: professional and academic achievements

Not everything is about your other half. Here are some ways to say ‘congratulations’ in Spanish for someone’s academic or professional achievements, such as graduations or promotions.

Studies

• ¡Enhorabuena/Felicidades por tu graduación! (Congratulations on your graduation!)
• ¡Felicitaciones por tus excelentes resultados! (Congratulations on your amazing results!)
• ¡Excelente trabajo! (Excellent work!)

Work

• ¡Excelente trabajo! (Excellent work!)
• ¡Felicitaciones por tu nuevo trabajo! (Congratulations on your new job!)
• ¡Felicidades por tu ascenso! (Congratulations on your promotion!)
• ¡Bien merecido tu nuevo cargo! (Your new job/role is well deserved!)

“Congratulations” in Spanish: the holidays

The holidays are prime time to celebrate with friends and family. However, it would take us a whole series of articles to go over all existing holidays. Therefore, we selected the most popular ones.

Easter

• ¡Felices Pascuas! (Happy Easter!)

Public holidays

• ¡Feliz día de la independencia! (Happy Independence Day!)
• ¡Feliz día del trabajador! (Happy Labor Day!)

Fun fact: Did you know Labour Day is celebrated on the first of May in most countries around the globe? This includes Hispanic America and Spain.

Mother’s/Father’s Day

• ¡Feliz día de la madre!
• ¡Feliz día del padre!

You may see a pattern between these two and celebrating public holidays. In both cases, we have taken ¡Feliz día! and added the relevant celebration. You can do this with other holidays, like International Women’s Day: ¡Feliz día de la mujer! (Happy Women’s Day!).

Christmas and New Year’s

• ¡Feliz Nochebuena! (Happy Christmas Eve!)
• ¡Feliz Navidad! (Merry Christmas!)
• ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! (Happy New Year!)
• ¡Felices fiestas! (Happy holidays!)
• ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero Año Nuevo! (Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year!)

We are pretty sure you were already acquainted with these, even if you were not fully aware of it. José Feliciano’s bilingual song Feliz Navidad is a Christmas classic! The Puerto Rican singer recorded the song in 1970, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010.

“Congratulations” in Spanish: regional varieties

In addition to the traditional ways to congratulate people we’ve seen so far, there are also regional variations and slang. These correspond to phrases like ‘That’s great’ or ‘That’s awesome’ in English. Let’s look at some below.

• ¡Qué padre! and ¡Qué chido! are used in Mexico.
• ¡Qué guay! is used in Spain.
• ¡Qué bacán! is used in Chile, Cuba, and other countries.
• ¡Chévere! is used in the Caribbean.
• ¡Qué genial! and ¡Buenísimo! are understood across Hispanic America and Spain.

If you are curious about Spanish slang, check out this dictionary.

Responding to “Congratulations” in Spanish

We have “Congratulations” in Spanish more than covered. But what if someone is congratulating you? Here are the three main ways you can thank someone for their well-wishes.

Gracias (Thanks / Thank you)

“Gracias” is the most common and straightforward way to say thank you in Spanish. It translates to either “Thanks” or “Thank you” and can be used in both formal and informal contexts.

Muchas gracias (Thank you very much)

If you want to add a bit of enthusiasm to your “thank you”, muchas gracias has got you covered.

Muchísimas gracias (Thanks a lot)

This is the next level for saying “thank you” in Spanish. Though we translated it roughly as “Thanks a lot” here, it could also be “thank you very much,” but it goes even further in showing how much you appreciate someone’s appreciation of your achievements.

Of course, this is just a taster. This article shows you many more ways to say ‘thank you’ in Spanish. And, as a bonus, here is an article on how to say ‘you’re welcome.’

“Congratulations” in Spanish: final word

Just as in English, the language of congratulating someone is vast and nuanced, depending on the context. In this article, we’ve given you the tools to say “congratulations’ in Spanish on most occasions. A little mix-and-matching goes a long way if you want to cover all your bases.

We hope you found this helpful and that you have tons to celebrate in the coming weeks!

Learn how to say “congratulations in Spanish” for any occasion! Discover the most common phrases like ¡Felicidades! and ¡Enhorabuena!, plus examples for birthdays, weddings, promotions, and more — sound natural and celebrate like a native speaker.