Future Perfect Tense in Spanish Grammar
- When to use the Spanish future perfect?
- Verb Conjugation in Spanish Future Perfect
- Past Participle
- Irregular verbs and their derivatives
- Online exercises to improve your Spanish
- Lingolia Plus Spanish
What is the futuro compuesto?
The futuro compuesto/futuro perfecto de indicativo, or future perfect indicative is used in Spanish to express a forthcoming action that will have concluded before another future action. It can also express the assumption that an action would have occurred in the past.
Learn how and when to use the future perfect in Spanish grammar and master the conjugation of regular and irregular verbs with Lingolia’s grammar rules and exercises. In tense comparison, you will find an overview of all the tenses in Spanish grammar.
Example

—¿Por qué está desmontando su bici Jorge?
—Se habrá caído de la bicicleta o habrá tenido una avería.
—¡Oh, no! En una hora queríamos dar una vuelta en bici.
—¡No te preocupes! Para entonces ya la habrá reparado.
When to use the Spanish future perfect?
Use the future perfect indicative in Spanish to express:
- an action that will have been completed by a certain point in the future. We always use a time marker in this context.
- Example:
- Jorge salió muy temprano con la bicicleta. Para la hora de comer, habrá vuelto a casa.Jorge went out early on his bike. He will have come back by lunch time.
- an assumption about an action that happened in the past.
- Examples:
- Se habrá caído de la bicicleta.He will have fallen off his bike.
- Habrá tenido una avería.He will have had an accident.
- an assumption about the future.
- Example:
- La semana que viene va de excursión con unos amigos. Para entonces habrá reparado la avería.Next week he’s going on a trip with some friends. By then he will have repaired the damage.
Verb Conjugation in Spanish Future Perfect
To conjugate verbs in future perfect (futuro perfecto), we use the future forms of the verb haber, as well as the past participle.
Person | haber | Past Participle |
---|---|---|
yo | habré |
hablado aprendido vivido |
tú | habrás | |
él/ella/usted | habrá | |
nosotros/-as | habremos | |
vosotros/-as | habréis | |
ellos/ellas/ustedes | habrán |
Reflexive Verbs
When the verb is reflexive, the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nos, os, se) always comes before the auxiliary verb haber.
- Example:
- (Yo) me habré olvidado las llaves en casa.I must have forgotten my keys at home
Past Participle
To form the Spanish past participle, replace the infinitive ending -ar with the ending -ado and the endings -er and -ir with the ending -ido.
- Example:
- hablar - hablado
- aprender - aprendido
- vivir - vivido
Irregular past participles
-
If there is a vowel directly before the -ido ending, we add an accent to the i of the ending. This shows us that each vowel is pronounced separately (not as a diphthong).
- Example:
- leer – leído
- traer - traído
- Some verbs have an irregular and/or regular participle form. These can be found in the following list:
Verb | Irregular Participle | Regular Participle |
---|---|---|
abriropen | abierto | |
decirsay/tell | dicho | |
escribirwrite | escrito | |
hacermake/do | hecho | |
freírfry | frito | freído |
imprimirprint | impreso | imprimido |
morirdie | muerto | |
ponerput | puesto | |
proveerprovide | provisto | proveído |
suscribirsign/subscribe | suscrito/suscripto | |
versee | visto | |
volverreturn | vuelto |
Irregular verbs and their derivatives
Verbs formed by adding a prefix to an irregular verb form their participles in the same way as the original verb.
- Examples:
- encubrir → encubierto
- descubrir → descubierto
- componer → compuesto
- posponer → pospuesto
- proponer → propuesto
- resolver → resuelto
- revolver → revuelto
- devolver → devuelto
- deshacer → deshecho
- prever → previsto