Previous research has found lexical access to be related to both categorization processes, whereby concepts are grouped into different types of categories such as taxonomic, experimental and ad hoc; and to semantic fluency, which is concerned with an individual’s ability to produce words related to a specific category. However, studies analyzing the semantic fluency of monolingual and bilingual learners have produced inconclusive findings. In addition, there is an evident lack of research comparing the lexical access of monolingual and multilingual EFL learners of heritage origin. This study thus compares the semantic fluency of non-heritage (L2) and heritage (L3) EFL learners in order to examine the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of their lexical access. The results indicate that there are qualitative rather than quantitative differences between the groups and highlight the importance of being aware of ELF learners’ previous linguistic knowledge as well as the type of linguistic category to facilitate learners’ access to and organization of their lexicon.