What Is the Passive Voice?
In an active sentence, the subject performs the action. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action. This simple shift changes what you choose to emphasise — and it comes up constantly in academic writing, news reporting, formal emails, and everyday speech.
Active: The chef prepared the meal. Passive: The meal was prepared by the chef. Active: Someone stole my bicycle. Passive: My bicycle was stolen.
Notice two things straight away. First, what was the object in the active sentence (the meal, my bicycle) becomes the subject in the passive. Second, the person who performs the action — called the agent — can be included with by, or left out entirely when it is unknown or unimportant.
The passive is not a difficult structure to understand, but choosing it wisely — and forming it accurately — takes practice. Work through each section below and you will feel confident using it in any context.
How to Form the Passive
The passive is always built from the same two-part formula:
be (in the correct tense and form) + past participle
The past participle of regular verbs ends in -ed: cleaned, delivered, finished. Irregular verbs have their own forms: written, built, made, spoken, stolen. If you are not sure of an irregular past participle, a good dictionary will always list it.
The letter is written. (be = is, pp = written) The windows were cleaned. (be = were, pp = cleaned) The report has been finished. (be = has been, pp = finished) The bridge will be built. (be = will be, pp = built)
The key is that be carries all the tense information. You only ever change be; the past participle always stays the same regardless of tense, number, or person.
To convert any active sentence to passive, follow three steps: (1) move the object to subject position, (2) change be to match the original tense, (3) add the past participle. The original subject becomes a by-phrase — or disappears if it is unnecessary.
With modal verbs, the structure is modal + be + past participle — and be never changes after a modal:
This problem can be solved. The form must be completed before Monday. The package should have been delivered yesterday.
Passive Across All Tenses
Here is a complete reference showing how the passive works in each major tense. Study the pattern of be changing while the past participle stays fixed.
- Simple Present: Millions of cups of tea are drunk every day.
- Present Continuous: The road is being repaired at the moment.
- Present Perfect: The results have been announced.
- Simple Past: The castle was built in the twelfth century.
- Past Continuous: The suspect was being questioned when his lawyer arrived.
- Past Perfect: The contract had been signed before anyone raised objections.
- Simple Future (will): The winner will be chosen by a panel of judges.
- Future Perfect: The project will have been completed by the deadline.
- Going to Future: A new hospital is going to be opened in the city.
Present: English is spoken in over 50 countries. Past: French was spoken at the royal court for centuries. Present Perfect: Spanish has been spoken in the Americas since the 1500s. Future: Mandarin will be studied by many students next year.
The passive continuous exists but sounds heavy in long sentences. The building is being renovated is fine; try to avoid stacking too many auxiliaries — it had been being repaired is grammatically possible but rarely used in practice.
When to Use the Passive
Knowing the grammar is only half the story — you also need to know when the passive is the better choice. There are four main reasons to reach for it.
- The agent is unknown. If you do not know who did something, the passive lets you speak about the action without guessing.
My car was broken into last night. - The agent is obvious or unimportant. In scientific writing, the person performing an experiment is far less important than the process itself.
The solution was heated to 80 degrees. The results were recorded at five-minute intervals. - You want to avoid mentioning the agent. In formal or diplomatic language, the passive creates useful distance.
Mistakes were made. The decision has been postponed. - The receiver of the action is the topic. Good writers keep the topic — what the paragraph is about — at the front of each sentence. The passive lets you do this naturally.
This cathedral is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture. It was begun in the thirteenth century and completed over two hundred years later.
Active (better): The sales team exceeded their targets last quarter. Passive (better): Three workers were injured in the accident. Active (better): Shakespeare wrote Hamlet around 1600. Passive (better): Hamlet was written around 1600. (topic = the play)
The passive is not inherently more formal or better than the active — it is simply a different tool. Choose whichever construction puts the most important information where your reader expects it: at the beginning of the sentence.
The By-Agent
When you want to identify who or what performed the action in a passive sentence, you add a by-phrase after the verb. This is called the by-agent.
The symphony was composed by Beethoven. The decision was made by the committee. The dog was bitten by a bee. The data is processed by a powerful algorithm.
The by-agent answers the question Who did this? or What caused this? However, you should only include it when the information is genuinely useful to the reader. If you write Mistakes were made by someone, the agent adds nothing — leave it out.
A common learner question is: when should I include the agent? A practical rule: include it when the agent is surprising, famous, or new information that your reader does not already know.
The window was broken. (no agent needed — we do not know who) The window was broken by the youngest player on the team. (surprising — include it) The bill was signed. (in context, it may be obvious by whom) The bill was signed by the President. (adds important new information)
Do not confuse the by-agent with other uses of by. In The house was designed by a famous architect, by introduces the agent. But in She was standing by the door, by is a preposition of place. Context always makes the difference clear.
One more distinction worth knowing: after some passive verbs, especially those describing feelings or states, English uses with instead of by: The room was filled with smoke. He was satisfied with the result. She was surprised by the news. There is no shortcut here — these combinations are best learned as fixed phrases.
The Get-Passive
Alongside the standard be-passive, English has a second passive construction using get instead of be. This is called the get-passive, and it is very common in informal spoken English.
The structure is exactly parallel: get (in the correct tense) + past participle.
He got arrested outside the stadium. She gets paid on the last day of the month. They got married in the countryside. I got stung by a wasp in the garden. Our flight got delayed by two hours.
The get-passive tends to appear in three main situations:
- Unexpected or accidental events — things that happen to people without being planned: He got fired. She got hurt.
- Events with some involvement from the subject — the subject played a role in making the event happen: They got promoted. She got elected.
- Colloquial fixed expressions — get married, get divorced, get dressed, get lost, get started.
Avoid the get-passive in formal writing such as academic essays, business reports, or official letters. In those contexts, use the be-passive: The shipment was delayed rather than The shipment got delayed.
You can also use get with a reflexive pronoun to describe actions people do to themselves or that simply happen to them: Get dressed. Get lost. Get started. These are not true passives but share the same informal, dynamic feel.
Common Mistakes
Even intermediate and advanced learners make predictable errors with the passive. Here are the most important ones to watch out for — and how to fix them.
Mistake 1: Forgetting be or using the wrong form
The most frequent error is simply dropping the auxiliary or choosing the wrong tense of be.
✗ The letter send yesterday. ✓ The letter was sent yesterday. ✗ The results are announce tomorrow. ✓ The results will be announced tomorrow.
Mistake 2: Using the present participle instead of the past participle
Learners sometimes confuse the present participle (-ing) with the past participle.
✗ The report was writing by the director. ✓ The report was written by the director. ✗ The window was breaking during the storm. ✓ The window was broken during the storm.
Mistake 3: Passive with intransitive verbs
Only transitive verbs — verbs that take a direct object — can be made passive. Intransitive verbs like arrive, happen, sleep, die have no object, so they cannot be passivised.
✗ The accident was happened on the motorway. ✓ The accident happened on the motorway. ✗ She was arrived late. ✓ She arrived late.
Mistake 4: Overusing or underusing the by-agent
Including a vague agent (by someone, by people, by everyone) adds no information and sounds unnatural. Equally, omitting a genuinely important agent leaves the reader with an incomplete picture.
✗ The window was broken by somebody. (omit: adds nothing) ✓ The window was broken. ✗ The vaccine was developed. (in a medical context, the developing body matters) ✓ The vaccine was developed by a team of researchers at the university.
Mistake 5: Confusing passive with the perfect aspect
The present perfect active (has written) and the present passive (is written) look different but can seem similar to learners at first.
Active, present perfect: She has written three novels. Passive, simple present: Three novels are written every year by this author. Passive, present perfect: Three novels have been written by her.
When you write a passive sentence, always ask yourself: (1) Is the verb transitive? (2) Is be in the right tense? (3) Is the past participle — not the present participle — at the end? These three checks will catch almost every passive error before it reaches your reader.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the basic formula for the passive voice?
The passive voice is always formed with be (in the correct tense) + past participle. For example: 'The letter was signed' (simple past passive), or 'The results have been announced' (present perfect passive). The verb be carries the tense; the past participle never changes.
When should I use the passive instead of the active voice?
Use the passive when the agent (the doer) is unknown, obvious, or unimportant; when you want to focus on what happened rather than who did it; or when the receiver of the action is the topic of your paragraph. Avoid using it simply to sound more formal — the active voice is often clearer and more direct.
What is the difference between the be-passive and the get-passive?
Both use the same structure (auxiliary + past participle), but be-passive is neutral in register and suits all contexts. Get-passive (e.g., 'He got promoted') is informal, common in speech, and often implies the event was unexpected, accidental, or that the subject had some involvement. Avoid get-passive in formal writing.
Can all verbs be made passive?
No. Only transitive verbs — verbs that take a direct object — can be made passive. Intransitive verbs like arrive, happen, sleep, or die have no object to move to subject position, so they cannot be passivised. Saying 'The accident was happened' is incorrect; the correct form is simply 'The accident happened.'
Do I always need to include 'by' and the agent in a passive sentence?
No — the by-agent is optional. Include it only when the agent is important, surprising, or new information for the reader. If the agent is unknown, obvious from context, or adds nothing (e.g., 'by someone'), leave it out. Most passive sentences in everyday use omit the by-phrase entirely.
What is the most common mistake learners make with the passive?
The single most common error is using the present participle (-ing form) instead of the past participle — for example, writing 'The report was writing' instead of 'The report was written.' Always double-check that you have used the correct past participle, especially for irregular verbs.