Danish has no dedicated future tense, so it builds the future perfect and the future-in-the-past the same way English does: by stacking auxiliaries. The future perfect ("I will have eaten") and the future-in-the-past ("he said he would come") are both periphrastic, both relatively rare, and both belong mainly to careful, formal, or reported speech. This page shows you how each is assembled and — just as important — when Danish would rather you used a simpler tense instead.
The future perfect: vil/skal have + past participle
The future perfect expresses an action that will be completed before some later reference point in the future. The English template "will have done" maps almost exactly onto Danish: a future auxiliary (vil or skal) + the infinitive have + a past participle.
| English | Danish |
|---|---|
| I will have eaten by then | Jeg vil have spist inden da |
| By Friday we will have finished | Inden fredag vil vi være færdige |
| He will have left before we arrive | Han vil være taget af sted, før vi kommer |
Just as in the perfect tense generally, the auxiliary inside have/være follows the være rule for verbs of motion and change of state: taget af sted (left), kommet (arrived), blevet (become) take være, while most other verbs take have. See the perfect with have and være for the full split.
Når du vågner i morgen, vil jeg allerede have læst hele rapporten.
When you wake up tomorrow, I will already have read the whole report.
The choice between vil and skal carries the same nuance as in the simple future: vil leans toward prediction or the subject's own intention, skal toward arrangement, obligation, or a schedule. In the future perfect this difference is faint, and vil have is the default for a neutral prediction.
The future-in-the-past: ville/skulle + infinitive
The future-in-the-past describes something that was still in the future from a past vantage point — the classic "he said he would come." Danish uses the past-tense forms of the future auxiliaries, ville and skulle, plus a bare infinitive.
This construction lives almost entirely inside reported speech. When you backshift a direct statement into the past, a present-tense vil/skal becomes past-tense ville/skulle, exactly as English "will" becomes "would" and "shall/will" becomes "would/should".
| Direct speech | Reported (backshifted) |
|---|---|
| "Jeg kommer i morgen" | Han sagde, at han ville komme dagen efter |
| "Vi skal nok klare det" | De lovede, at de skulle klare det |
Han sagde, at han ville komme til festen, men han dukkede aldrig op.
He said that he would come to the party, but he never showed up.
Vi troede, at toget skulle afgå klokken otte, men det var forsinket.
We thought the train was supposed to leave at eight, but it was delayed.
Notice that skulle in the past often shades into "was supposed to" or "was to" — an arranged or expected future seen from the past. Ville stays closer to intention or prediction ("would").
You can also combine both layers — a future-in-the-past that is itself perfect: ville have + participle, "would have done". This is the form used in unreal/counterfactual sentences as well.
Hun sagde, at hun ville have ringet, hvis hun havde haft tid.
She said she would have called if she had had time.
Word order: these are subordinate-clause constructions
Both forms almost always appear inside a subordinate at-clause introduced by a verb of saying or thinking. That means subordinate word order applies: any sentence adverb (ikke, aldrig, allerede) sits before the finite verb, not after it.
Han forklarede, at han ikke ville nå frem til tiden.
He explained that he would not arrive on time.
Here ikke precedes ville, because the clause after at is subordinate. In a main clause it would be the other way around: Han ville ikke nå frem. For the full subordinate-clause template, see reported speech.
When NOT to use these forms
The single most common error is over-construction: building an elaborate vil have + participle where a native speaker would reach for a simpler tense. Danish, like English, lets the present perfect or even the plain present do future work when a time adverbial makes the timing clear.
Vi ses på fredag — så har jeg læst bogen færdig.
See you Friday — by then I'll have finished the book.
Here har læst (present perfect) does the job of a future perfect, and adding vil would sound stilted. Use the explicit future perfect only when the futurity of the completion is the very point you are making.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg vil har spist inden da.
Incorrect — after vil you need the infinitive have, not the present-tense har.
✅ Jeg vil have spist inden da.
I'll have eaten by then.
❌ Han sagde, at han vil komme i morgen.
Incorrect — no backshift; vil should become ville inside the past-tense report.
✅ Han sagde, at han ville komme dagen efter.
He said he would come the next day.
❌ Inden fredag vil jeg har være færdig.
Incorrect — doubled auxiliary; motion/state verbs take være, not have være.
✅ Inden fredag vil jeg være færdig.
By Friday I'll be finished.
❌ Han forklarede, at han ville ikke nå frem.
Incorrect — main-clause order in a subordinate clause; ikke must precede the verb.
✅ Han forklarede, at han ikke ville nå frem.
He explained that he wouldn't arrive on time.
❌ Når du vågner, vil jeg spist.
Incorrect — the future perfect needs the auxiliary have between vil and the participle.
✅ Når du vågner, vil jeg have spist.
When you wake up, I'll have eaten.
Key Takeaways
- Future perfect = vil/skal
- have/være
- past participle. It is rare in speech; the plain present perfect usually replaces it.
- have/være
- Future-in-the-past = ville/skulle
- infinitive, living mostly inside backshifted reported speech.
- Both sit in subordinate clauses, so sentence adverbs come before the finite verb.
- Don't over-construct: if a time adverbial already pins down the timing, a simpler tense is more natural.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Expressing the FutureA2 — Danish has no future tense — it uses the plain present, vil, or skal, each with a different nuance. The key is the skal (plan) vs vil (volition) split that English 'will' obscures.
- Reported Speech and BackshiftB2 — How Danish turns direct quotes into indirect speech — the complementiser at, tense backshift, pronoun and deictic shifts, reported questions with om and hv-words, and modal backshift.
- Choosing Have or Være in the PerfectB1 — Why most Danish verbs build the perfect with have, but verbs of motion and change of state use være — and how the same verb can take either.