Passive voice in all tenses
The passive keeps the tense of the active sentence and carries it on the *be* verb. "Writes" becomes "is written," "wrote" becomes "was written," "has written" becomes "has been written," and so on through all twelve tenses. The participle never changes; only *be* does.
The full table (verb: write)
| Tense | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| Simple present | She writes the report. | The report is written. |
| Present progressive | She is writing the report. | The report is being written. |
| Present perfect | She has written the report. | The report has been written. |
| Present perfect progressive | She has been writing the report. | (avoided: “has been being written”) |
| Simple past | She wrote the report. | The report was written. |
| Past progressive | She was writing the report. | The report was being written. |
| Past perfect | She had written the report. | The report had been written. |
| Past perfect progressive | She had been writing the report. | (avoided: “had been being written”) |
| Simple future | She will write the report. | The report will be written. |
| Future progressive | She will be writing the report. | (avoided: “will be being written”) |
| Future perfect | She will have written the report. | The report will have been written. |
| Future perfect progressive | She will have been writing the report. | (avoided) |
Beyond the twelve
| Form | Active | Passive |
|---|---|---|
| Modal | She must write the report. | The report must be written. |
| Modal perfect | She should have written the report. | The report should have been written. |
| “Going to” future | She is going to write the report. | The report is going to be written. |
| Infinitive | She needs to write the report. | The report needs to be written. |
| Perfect infinitive | She claims to have written it. | It is claimed to have been written. |
| Gerund | She dislikes writing reports. | She dislikes being told to write reports. |
| Imperative | Write the report. | Let the report be written. (formal, rare) |
| Get-passive | — | The report got written eventually. |
Which tense carries which meaning
Simple present passive is the voice of rules and routines: “Premiums are calculated from payroll.” Simple past passive reports what happened: “The claim was denied.” Present perfect passive reports a result that still matters: “Your application has been received.” Progressive passives say something is under way: “The road is being repaved.” Modal passives state obligation or possibility without naming who is obliged: “Receipts must be kept.”
The progressive-perfect combinations are grammatical but produce “been being,” which almost no one writes. If you need the meaning, choose the plain perfect (“has been written”) or the progressive (“is being written”) and let context carry the rest.
Agreement
The be verb agrees with the passive subject, not with the doer: “The reports are reviewed by one supervisor”; “One report is reviewed by several supervisors.” The participle never changes form.
Try any tense in the active to passive converter, which builds the form for you, or paste a draft into the checker to see which tenses you lean on.
Questions people ask
- How many tenses have a passive form?
All twelve can be formed, but three — the present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive and future perfect progressive — are so clumsy (“has been being written”) that writers avoid them and use a simpler form instead.
- What is the passive voice of the present perfect?
has/have been + past participle: “The report has been written.” The active form is “She has written the report.”
- What is the passive of the future tense?
will be + past participle: “The report will be written.” Future perfect: “will have been written.”
- What is the passive form of a modal verb?
modal + be + past participle: “must be written,” “can be written,” “should have been written” (modal perfect).
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