Semantic fluency in first and second languages depends on lexical-semantic organisational mechanisms, such as clustering and switching (Bose et al., Int J Lang Commun Disord 52(3):334–345, 2017; Tomé Cornejo, Léxico disponible. Procesamiento y aplicación a la enseñanza de ELE. Master’s thesis, Universidad de Salamanca. Gredos, 2015). Creative individuals exhibit greater fluency and more distant idea associations due to a highly interconnected semantic memory structure and greater flexibility in strategic search processes (Benedek et al., NeuroImage 210:116586, 2020; Kenett and Faust, Trends Cognit Sci 23(4):271–274, 2019). While recent studies have associated creative ability with greater word retrieval in L2 semantic fluency tasks (Fernández-Fontecha, System 103:102658, 2021), it remains unclear whether creative semantic memory influences the use of clustering and switching in L2 semantic fluency performance. Manual identification of clusters introduces subjectivity, a limitation that automatic vectorial semantic methods can help overcome. Using this approach, Fernández-Fontecha and Ryan (Stud Second Lang Learn Teach 13(3):541–570, 2023) reported that creative L2 learners relied on switching, whereas less creative learners relied on larger clusters, although this difference was not statistically significant. The present study extends this investigation by applying a similar method to four nontaxonomic semantic fluency tasks (‘Beach’, ‘Box’, ‘Countryside’, and ‘Fun’) completed by 35 Spanish 12th-year EFL learners. Inferential analyses revealed results that were partially consistent with previous findings: switching was the primary strategy among the most creative group, whereas no significant differences were identified regarding cluster size.