How to conjugate haber in Spanish

You’ve just looked up “haber conjugation,” and now you’re here, face to face with one of Spanish’s most confusing verbs—the one that means there is but also lets you say you’ve done something. Haber is the ultimate shape-shifter: the verb that never really does anything but somehow shows up everywhere. It's also one of the most important verbs out there, so far as your quest to learn Spanish goes, because you can't make compound verb tenses without it.

In this article, we’ll break it down, tense by tense, sharing examples and point out the sneaky ways it appears in real life.

Let's get started!

  

First, what is an auxiliary verb?

In Spanish, like English, there are multiple types of verbs:

"Haber"

is one such auxiliary verb. In Spanish, it has a few main usages:

Haber conjugation | tenses in the indicative mood

The indicative mood is used to describe reality as it is: facts, things that actually happened, or things that are happening right now. It exists in contrast to the subjunctive mood, which we'll talk about below.

There's also a very important pattern you should notice:

1. Present indicative (Presente de indicativo)

Your most common use for the present indicative of haber will actually be to make English's present perfect tense (have ~'d), but you can also use it to state the existence of something.

Examples:

2. Preterite indicative (Pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo)

The preterite indicative is one of Spanish's two past tenses. Your most common use for it will be to make English's past perfect tense (had ~'d), but you can also use it to say there "was" something at a specific point in time.

Examples:

3. Imperfect indicative (Pretérito imperfecto de indicativo)

The imperfect indicative describes ongoing, repeated, or "background" actions in the past. You'll often use this sentence to set the scene for something you're about to say: you were (in a state) when (something changed/happened).

Examples:

4. Future indicative (Futuro simple de indicativo) 

This one is more straightforward! It corresponds to English's future perfect tense, and is used to say that something "will have ~'d" by a certain time in the future.

Examples:

5. Conditional indicative (Condicional simple de indicativo)

Another one that will feel very natural for you as an English speaker. This tense is used to talk about hypothetical situations or things that would happen (or would have happened) under certain conditions.

Examples:

Haber conjugation | tenses in the subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is used to talk about uncertainty, wishes, emotions, doubts, or hypothetical situations... and you're completely in the right if you feel like that explanation isn't super clear. The subjunctive is a big topic, and it took us an entire blog post to really explain how it differs from the indicative mood.

So:

6. Present subjunctive (Presente de subjuntivo)

The present tense subjunctive mood is a combination of the present tense—exactly as shown above in the indicative section—plus the subjunctive mood, which is primarily used to express WEIRDO statements: wishes, emotions, impersonal expressions, requests, doubts, and sentences which include the verb "ojalá" (I hope/wish). There's a lot to unpack here, so if this is the first time you're hearing about the subjunctive, please do see the blog post linked just above.

Examples:

7. Imperfect subjunctive (Pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo)

Here, we have the same imperfect tense from above, but now flavored by the WEIRDO triggers mentioned in the above section. You'll note that there are two forms of imperfect subjunctive, one ending in ~ra and another ending in ~se. Why there are two forms is beyond the scope of this blog post, but just know that they are interchangeable. You'll want to be aware of both, as some countries prefer one or the other, but they mean the same thing.

Examples:

8. Future subjunctive (Futuro de subjuntivo)

This form is rarely used in modern Spanish. You'll only find it in historical, legal, or very formal texts. When this form is used in modern Spanish, native speakers tend to replace it with either the present subjunctive or imperfect subjunctive, covered above.

Example (archaic/formal):

9. Haber conjugation | imperative form 

This one is sort of interesting. You technically can make an imperative form of "haber", but you likely won't. Considering that haber means "have ~d" or "there is/something exists"—you understandably can't command someone to "have!" or "be!" in the same way that you could command them to "eat!" or "speak!"

Having said that, you will see haber in the imperative in some historical texts and also in a few archaic fixed expressions. Namely:

Spanish grammar | Common structures with haber

If you have come this far, you might already know that haber isn’t just a standalone verb—it loves company.

These usages are featured in the example sentences above, but to present them in one tidy place, here are the three most common structures in which you'll use haber:

1. Present tense of haber + past participle  → have done (something)

A participle is a special verb form. You don't need to know what it means for now—just that, to make Spanish participles, the ~ar of ~ar verbs gets replaced with ~ado (hablar {to speak} → hablado) and the ~er/~ir of ~er and ~ir verbs gets replaced with ~ido (comer {to eat} → comido).

When you combine the present tense of haber (see verb form 1, way up above) you get the present perfect tense. You can use this to (A) say that you have the experience of having done something, or (b) say that you have done something in the very recent past and that it is relevant to the present.

Examples:

2. Haber que + infinitive → must do something

The infinitive form of a verb is what you see in the dictionaries: verbs in their default ~ar, ~er, or ~ir form. When you combine a form of haber with another verb in the infinitive, you get a neutral way to express necessity, akin to "one must" or "it is necessary to".

Examples:

3. Hay + noun → there is a (something)

This one is perhaps the most straightforward. When you want to say there is/was/will be/etc. in English, you'll accomplish that in Spanish via the relevant form of "haber".

Struggling with verb conjugation in Spanish?

I'm not going to lie: learning to conjugate Spanish verbs is a pretty steep hill. There are several dozen forms of each verb, and that's an overwhelming amount of overhead to deal with early on.

The thing is, you don't need to conquer verb conjugation right away.

To start with, just make a point to consume Spanish media:

As you do so, you'll encounter conjugated verbs everywhere. This will be difficult at first, but your brain is a pattern-recognition machine, and you'll notice stuff: the "we" form of verbs tends to include an M, the "they" form tends to end in an N, the "he/she/it" form tends to end in a vowel. Stuff like that.

From time to time, you'll find useful phrases that include these verb forms—hubo un tiempo means there was a time, for example. Migaku lets you click one button to extract audio, subtitles, and a screenshot directly from YouTube to make a flashcard like this one:

And, with time, as you notice more patterns and learn more common phrases or structures that include these verbs, the ground will get a bit firmer under your feet. You'll probably still need to drill the verb forms, but you'll have a rough idea of the "shape" of each tense and what sort of sentences they tend to appear in. That foundation will make a huge difference.

So, if you're fretting over tenses and conjugations—just chill for a while. Spend some time in Spanish, let stick the things that stick, and then come back in several months and work on your weak points.

Learn Spanish with Migaku

Now that you "has aprendido" how to use and conjugate the Spanish Verb haber...

There was a lot of information here, and you should now have a clearer picture of where it fits in Spanish.

Perhaps unexpectedly—we don't think you should try to memorize all this stuff.

As goes the Golden Rule of Language Learning:

If you're struggling with Spanish, the #1 thing you should be doing is finding ways to increase the amount of time you spend interacting with Spanish (not with things that talk in English about Spanish.)

¡Buena suerte spotting haber in the wild!