The future perfect (futur perfet) presents an event as already complete at a future reference point: A les vuit ja hauré sopat “By eight I will already have eaten dinner.” Informally, it can also express a conjecture about a completed event: S’haurà adormit “He must have fallen asleep.” Both uses look backward from a reference point, but only the first is the unmarked formal use.
Formation: future of haver + past participle
Conjugate the auxiliary haver in the simple future and follow it with the past participle of the lexical verb.
| Person | haver | With acabar |
|---|---|---|
| jo | hauré | hauré acabat |
| tu | hauràs | hauràs acabat |
| ell, ella, vostè | haurà | haurà acabat |
| nosaltres | haurem | haurem acabat |
| vosaltres | haureu | haureu acabat |
| ells, elles, vostès | hauran | hauran acabat |
The stress and accents belong to the auxiliary: hauré, hauràs, haurà. With an ordinary following noun object, the participle stays in its citation form: Haurem acabat la feina. With a preceding third-person direct-object clitic (la, els, les), however, participle agreement is traditional and remains especially common in formal language: La feina l’haurem acabada. This real variation receives fuller treatment on Participle Agreement. Irregular participles remain irregular: haurà fet, haureu dit, hauran vist, hauré escrit.
A finals de mes haurem acabat les obres.
By the end of the month, we will have finished the work.
Quan arribis, ja hauré preparat el sopar.
When you arrive, I’ll already have prepared dinner.
Negation and weak pronouns precede haver: no ho haurà vist, se n’hauran oblidat, ja l’haurem enviat. The auxiliary carries person, number, tense, and mood; the participle contributes the completed lexical event.
Completion before a future point
This is the core use. The reference point may be a clock time, a date, another event, or an understood deadline.
Abans de divendres t’hauré enviat el pressupost.
Before Friday, I’ll have sent you the quote.
D’aquí a deu anys, molts barris hauran canviat completament.
Ten years from now, many neighborhoods will have changed completely.
A les sis encara no haureu rebut cap resposta.
By six, you still won’t have received any reply.
Quan els nens es despertin, nosaltres ja haurem marxat.
When the children wake up, we will already have left.
The future perfect does not merely mean that an event is future. It gives the event a completed viewpoint relative to something later. Compare Demà acabaré l’informe “I will finish the report tomorrow,” which locates the finishing event, with Demà a les deu ja hauré acabat l’informe, which evaluates the report as complete by ten.
Plans, promises, and projected results
Because the form looks back from a future deadline, it often expresses confidence about a result or reassures someone that a task will be done.
No pateixis: quan comenci la reunió, ja ho hauré comprovat tot.
Don’t worry: by the time the meeting starts, I’ll have checked everything.
Si tot va bé, al juny hauré estalviat prou per al viatge.
If all goes well, by June I’ll have saved enough for the trip.
The sentence does not assert that the completion has happened. It projects completion from the speaker’s present standpoint. That is why the future perfect is an indicative tense, not a guarantee: a phrase such as si tot va bé can explicitly preserve uncertainty.
English and Catalan align fairly closely here, but English sometimes uses a simple future where Catalan highlights the deadline with the perfect, and vice versa. Choose the form because the future result is viewed as complete, not because the English sentence contains “will have.”
Informal conjecture about a completed event
In (informal) usage, the future perfect can move its reference point to the present and infer that an earlier event has probably occurred.
No obre la porta; haurà sortit a comprar.
She isn’t opening the door; she must have gone out shopping. (informal)
S’hauran equivocat d’adreça, perquè encara no han arribat.
They must have got the address wrong, because they still haven’t arrived. (informal)
On haurà deixat les claus?
Where can he have left the keys? (informal)
This is the completed-event counterpart of the conjectural simple future: Serà a casa guesses about a current state; Haurà arribat a casa guesses that an arrival is already complete. Contemporary (formal) Catalan instead uses deure haver + participle.
Deu haver sortit a comprar.
She must have gone out shopping. (neutral and formal-safe)
Es deuen haver equivocat d’adreça.
They must have got the address wrong. (neutral and formal-safe)
Contrast with neighboring compound tenses
All Catalan compound tenses use haver + participle; the auxiliary locates the viewpoint.
| Form | Reference point | Example |
|---|---|---|
| present perfect: he acabat | present | Avui ja he acabat. |
| pluperfect: havia acabat | past | Quan vas trucar, ja havia acabat. |
| future perfect: hauré acabat | future | Quan truquis, ja hauré acabat. |
The event may be similar in all three sentences; what changes is the temporal vantage point from which it is viewed as complete.
Mini-dialogue
—Creus que tindràs temps d’enllestir-ho? —Sí. Quan arribin els clients, ja hauré imprès els contractes.
—Do you think you’ll have time to finish it? —Yes. When the clients arrive, I’ll already have printed the contracts.
—I si encara no ha vingut el missatger? —No pateixis; a aquella hora ja haurà passat per recepció.
—And what if the courier hasn’t come yet? —Don’t worry; by then he’ll already have been through reception.
The second haurà passat is a projected completed event if a aquella hora is future. Without a future reference point, the same words could be an informal inference about a past visit. Context decides.
Regional and register notes
The six standard forms of haver and the compound-tense pattern are shared across IEC and AVL standards and across the major regional varieties. The participle never agrees with the subject; the optional direct-object agreement described above is a separate phenomenon. Regional pronunciation does not change the written paradigm. The meaningful variation here is register: completed-before-future use is standard everywhere; conjectural past use is informal, and careful prose prefers deure haver + participle.
Common Mistakes
1. Building the auxiliary on Spanish haber- instead of Catalan haur-.
❌ Haveré acabat abans de les sis.
Incorrect—this copies the Spanish future stem.
✅ Hauré acabat abans de les sis.
I’ll have finished before six.
2. Making the participle agree with an ordinary following noun object. A preceding direct-object clitic creates a different agreement pattern, as explained above.
❌ Demà haurem escrites les cartes.
Incorrect—the following noun object does not trigger participle agreement.
✅ Demà haurem escrit les cartes.
We’ll have written the letters by tomorrow.
3. Putting the weak pronoun after the participle.
❌ Hauré acabat-ho a les cinc.
Incorrect clitic placement.
✅ Ho hauré acabat a les cinc.
I’ll have finished it by five.
4. Using the future perfect for past probability in formal writing.
❌ L’autora haurà consultat fonts avui desaparegudes.
Not appropriate as a conjecture about the past in formal academic prose.
✅ L’autora deu haver consultat fonts avui desaparegudes.
The author must have consulted sources that have since disappeared. (academic)
5. Using a future form in the condition introduced by si.
❌ Si demà ja hauràs acabat, envia-m’ho.
Incorrect tense selection in the si-clause.
✅ Si demà ja has acabat, envia-m’ho.
If you have finished by tomorrow, send it to me.
Key Takeaways
Form the future perfect with hauré, hauràs, haurà, haurem, haureu, hauran plus a past participle. Its central logic is completion before a future reference point. Its completed-event conjecture is useful to understand but informal; in neutral formal Catalan, use deure haver + participle. Remember that a preceding la, els, or les may license participle agreement, especially formally.
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Start learning Catalan →Related Topics
- Forming the Simple FutureA2 — Build regular Catalan future forms from the infinitive base and the endings -é, -às, -à, -em, -eu, and -an.
- Uses of the FutureA2 — How Catalan uses the simple future for predictions, promises, plans, and formal instructions—and when the present is more natural.
- The Conjectural FutureB1 — How the future can express a present-time guess in informal Catalan, and why deure plus infinitive is the safer standard choice.
- Forming the Present PerfectA2 — Build the Catalan present perfect with present haver plus a past participle, and place negation, questions, and weak pronouns correctly.
- The Pluperfect IndicativeB1 — Use havia plus a participle to locate an event before another past reference point.
- Deure plus Infinitive for ProbabilityB1 — Use deure plus a simple or perfect infinitive to express present and past inference without confusing probability with obligation.