English has essentially one passive: be + past participle, stretched across every tense and tone (was opened, is opened, will be opened). Norwegian has five passive-like strategies, and they are not interchangeable — each carries a distinct profile of aspect (event vs state vs rule), register (spoken vs formal-written), tense restrictions, and which argument it promotes. Advanced writers choose deliberately. This page assembles the whole system into one decision guide. It assumes the basics from choosing/s-passive-vs-bli-passive and the ditransitive details from verbs/passive-of-ditransitives; here we integrate everything.
The five strategies at a glance
| Type | Form | Core meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| bli-passive | bli/ble/blitt + ptcp | a dynamic, bounded event | neutral — spoken & written |
| s-passive | infinitive + -s | general / habitual / rule / instruction | formal, written, after modals |
| være-passive | være/var + ptcp | resultant state | neutral |
| få-passive | få/fikk + ptcp | recipient gets a result | neutral |
| det-passive | det + passive verb | impersonal, no promoted subject | formal / written |
The single most useful way to feel the differences is to run the same event through all five. Take "the door / opening the door":
Døra ble åpnet klokka åtte.
The door was opened at eight. (bli — a specific event that happened)
Døra åpnes klokka åtte.
The door opens / is opened at eight. (s — a rule or scheduled routine)
Døra er åpnet allerede.
The door is (already) open / has been opened. (være — the resulting state)
Vi fikk åpnet døra til slutt.
We managed to get the door open in the end. (få — resultative, with a benefiting subject)
Det ble åpnet en ny dør i veggen.
A new door was opened in the wall. (det — impersonal, introducing new information)
Notice they are not synonyms. Ble åpnet reports an event; åpnes states a rule; er åpnet describes the state the door is now in; fikk åpnet foregrounds the people who achieved it; det ble åpnet presents the whole thing as fresh, subjectless news. English flattens all five into "was/is opened" plus context — Norwegian encodes the distinction in the verb.
The bli-passive: the default for events
If you can answer "what happened?", you want bli. It works in every tense, names a bounded dynamic event, and is at home in speech and writing alike. When in doubt, this is the safe choice.
Sykkelen min ble stjålet utenfor biblioteket i går.
My bike was stolen outside the library yesterday.
Forslaget blir behandlet i neste møte.
The proposal will be dealt with at the next meeting.
The bli-passive also alone handles a clean single past event comfortably: Døra ble åpnet is unremarkable, whereas the s-passive in the simple preterite for a one-off event is awkward (see below).
The s-passive: rules, habits, modals, infinitives
The s-passive (the infinitive plus -s) does not report a particular event — it states something general: a rule, a regulation, a habitual procedure, an instruction, a timeless fact. It is the register of signage, statutes, recipes, and scientific method, and it is decidedly formal/written.
Billetter kjøpes i automaten ved inngangen.
Tickets are bought / to be bought at the machine by the entrance. (instruction)
Søknaden sendes til kommunen innen 1. mars.
The application is to be sent to the municipality by 1 March. (procedure)
Crucially, the s-passive is the obligatory passive after a modal and in the infinitive — bli is barred there. Where English says "must be done", Norwegian says må gjøres, not må bli gjort (the latter is non-standard).
Dette må gjøres før vi går videre.
This must be done before we move on.
Reservedeler kan kjøpes på nett.
Spare parts can be bought online.
Det er viktig å informeres om endringene.
It's important to be informed about the changes. (s-passive in the infinitive)
The s-passive's tense restriction
This is the rule learners most often miss. The s-passive lives in the non-past (present) and the infinitive. It is essentially confined there. In the simple preterite describing a single concrete event it is awkward to ungrammatical for most verbs: ?Døra åpnedes klokka åtte sounds wrong (and survives only in frozen, archaic-flavoured forms like fantes, fødtes, møttes). For a past event, switch to bli.
✅ Døra ble åpnet klokka åtte.
The door was opened at eight. (past event → bli)
❌ Døra åpnedes klokka åtte.
Stilted/archaic — don't use the s-passive for a single past event.
The være-passive: the resulting state
Være + participle (er åpnet, var stengt) does not describe the event of opening — it describes the state that results from it. It answers "what condition is it in?", not "what happened to it?". This is the stative passive, and the contrast with bli is real:
Veien ble stengt på grunn av ras.
The road was closed because of a landslide. (the event of closing)
Veien er stengt — vi må kjøre en annen vei.
The road is closed — we have to drive another way. (the current state)
If you can paraphrase with "is now in the state of being X-ed", choose være. If you mean "the X-ing took place", choose bli. English often blurs these (the shop is closed can mean either), so this is a distinction English speakers must learn to make on purpose.
The få-passive: promoting the recipient
Covered in depth in verbs/passive-of-ditransitives: få + participle promotes a recipient to subject and frames the event as a result they come to enjoy or undergo. Reach for it when the person who benefits is your topic.
Hun fikk innvilget permisjon i tre måneder.
She was granted three months' leave.
The det-passive: impersonal, subjectless
When there is no argument worth promoting — you want to assert that an activity took place without naming a subject — Norwegian uses the impersonal det-passive: expletive det in the subject slot, a passive verb, and the logical object (if any) introduced as new information after the verb. This is the dedicated tool for backgrounding everyone and presenting an event as pure happening.
Det danses hver lørdag på samfunnshuset.
There's dancing every Saturday at the community hall. (intransitive — no object at all)
Det ble servert kaffe og kaker etter seremonien.
Coffee and cakes were served after the ceremony. (new info introduced after the verb)
Det forskes mye på temaet for tiden.
There's a lot of research being done on the topic at the moment. (academic)
The det-passive is the only passive that works for intransitive verbs (you cannot promote an object that does not exist), and it combines naturally with the s-passive (det danses, det forskes) for a generic flavour or with bli (det ble servert) for a bounded event.
The decision guide
Run your sentence through these questions in order:
- Is it intransitive, or do you want no promoted subject at all? → det-passive (det danses, det ble servert kaffe).
- Are you describing the resulting state, not the event? → være-passive (døra er stengt).
- Is a recipient/beneficiary your topic? → få-passive (hun fikk innvilget permisjon).
- Is it a general rule/instruction, or after a modal, or in the infinitive? → s-passive (billetter kjøpes, må gjøres).
- Otherwise — a specific event, any tense, neutral register? → bli-passive (sykkelen ble stjålet). This is the default.
Common Mistakes
1. Collapsing all five into one "was X-ed". The cardinal English-speaker error is reaching for a single passive and trusting context. Norwegian readers expect the verb itself to signal event vs state vs rule.
❌ Butikken ble lukket nå, så vi kan ikke gå inn. (meaning 'the shop is closed now')
Wrong aspect — 'ble lukket' reports the act of closing, not the current state.
✅ Butikken er stengt nå, så vi kan ikke gå inn.
The shop is closed now, so we can't go in. (state → være)
2. Using the s-passive in casual speech. The s-passive sounds bureaucratic in conversation; spoken Norwegian overwhelmingly prefers bli.
❌ Sykkelen min stjeles i går. (chatting with a friend)
Wrong on two counts — s-passive in speech and in the past for a single event.
✅ Sykkelen min ble stjålet i går.
My bike was stolen yesterday.
3. Putting bli after a modal. After a modal, the morphological s-passive is required.
❌ Dette må bli gjort med en gang.
Non-standard — after a modal use the s-passive.
✅ Dette må gjøres med en gang.
This must be done right away.
4. Using the s-passive in the simple preterite for a one-off event. It survives only in a few frozen forms; otherwise switch to bli.
❌ Vinneren kåredes på scenen.
Stilted/archaic — for a single past event use bli.
✅ Vinneren ble kåret på scenen.
The winner was announced on stage.
5. Forgetting that intransitives need the det-passive. You cannot make a plain passive of a verb with no object; insert expletive det.
❌ Ble danset hele natta.
Incorrect — an intransitive passive needs an expletive det.
✅ Det ble danset hele natta.
There was dancing all night long.
Key Takeaways
- Norwegian has five passive strategies, each with a distinct aspect/register/promotion profile — they are not stylistic variants of one form.
- bli = the event (default, all tenses, neutral); s = rules/instructions, after modals, in infinitives (formal, non-past); være = the resulting state; få = recipient-resultative; det = impersonal/subjectless and the only option for intransitives.
- The two sharpest contrasts for English speakers: event vs state (ble stengt vs er stengt) and the s-passive's non-past restriction (åpnes / må åpnes, but past single event → ble åpnet).
- Advanced writing means choosing on purpose. Run the five-question decision guide until the choice becomes automatic.
Now practice Norwegian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- s-Passive vs bli-PassiveB2 — When to use the synthetic s-passive (rules, recipes, signs, the present/infinitive) versus the periphrastic bli-passive (specific events, every tense, the spoken default) — with a decision table.
- Advanced Passive: Agents, Impersonal, få-passiveB2 — Beyond the basic passive — the av-agent phrase, the impersonal subjectless passive that even works on intransitive verbs (det danses), recipient promotion in ditransitives (hun ble tilbudt jobben), the få-passive (han fikk utbetalt lønna), and modal + passive.
- Passivising Ditransitives and RecipientsC1 — How Norwegian turns two-object verbs (gi, tilby, nekte) into passives — promoting the recipient (Han ble gitt en bok) or the theme, and the recipient-focused få-passive.
- The s-PassiveB1 — How to form the synthetic -s passive (selges, åpnes, gjøres) and why Norwegian reserves it for rules, signs and the present tense.