Polish has a periphrastic passive built from an auxiliary plus a passive participle — much like English was sent, is closed. But where English uses one verb, be, for the whole job, Polish uses two auxiliaries, być and zostać, and the choice between them is not free: it encodes whether you mean the event of something happening (the letter got sent) or the resulting state it left behind (the letter is [in the state of] written). English "was" leaves this ambiguous; Polish forces you to choose. This page explains the być/zostać split, how the passive participle is formed and agrees, and how to name the agent.
The two auxiliaries, two meanings
The core contrast:
- zostać + perfective participle → a dynamic / eventive passive. It reports that an action happened, as a single completed event. Think got + past participle: "got closed", "got built", "got elected".
- być + participle → a stative passive. It reports the resulting state, not the event. Think is + adjective: "is closed", "is built", "is written".
Watch the same door under both:
Drzwi zostały zamknięte o ósmej.
The door was [got] closed at eight. (zostać — the EVENT of closing happened at eight)
Drzwi są zamknięte.
The door is closed. (być — the resulting STATE; we don't care when it happened)
The first answers "what happened?" — a closing event occurred. The second answers "what's the situation?" — the door currently stands closed. English "the door was closed" could mean either; Polish makes you pick.
List został wysłany wczoraj.
The letter was sent yesterday. (zostać — the sending event, dated)
List jest już napisany.
The letter is already written. (być — the state: it now exists, written)
Most został zbudowany w 1990 roku.
The bridge was built in 1990. (zostać — a historical event with a date)
Cały most jest zbudowany z kamienia.
The whole bridge is built of stone. (być — a permanent state/property)
być + participle can drift toward a plain adjective
Because the być-passive describes a state, its participle behaves much like an adjective, and learners sometimes can't tell jest zamknięty ("is closed", passive participle) from a true adjective. That's fine — the line is genuinely fuzzy, and you don't need to police it. What matters is that być + participle = state, and it does not, on its own, tell you anything about who did the action or when. If you need the event, switch to zostać.
Sklep jest zamknięty w niedziele.
The shop is closed on Sundays. (state/property — być)
Sklep został zamknięty przez sanepid.
The shop was [got] shut down by the sanitary inspectorate. (event, with an agent — zostać)
The passive participle: -ny / -ony / -ty
The passive participle is built from the verb's stem with one of three suffixes, then declined like an adjective. The three families:
| Suffix | From verbs like | Infinitive → participle (masc. sg.) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| -ny | -ać verbs | napisać → napisany | written |
| przeczytać → przeczytany | read | ||
| -ony | -ić/-eć, consonant stems | zrobić → zrobiony | done |
| kupić → kupiony | bought | ||
| -ty | -ąć, -nąć, monosyllabic | otworzyć → otwarty | opened |
| zamknąć → zamknięty | closed | ||
| wziąć → wzięty | taken |
The full formation (with the stem changes and softenings) lives on the passive participle page. For the passive voice, the essential fact is the next one: the participle agrees with the subject.
The participle agrees in gender and number
Because the participle is adjectival, it must match the subject in gender and number (and, in the plural, the masculine-personal split). This is unlike English, where closed never changes:
| Subject | być (state) | zostać (event) |
|---|---|---|
| list (m., "letter") | jest napisany | został napisany |
| książka (f., "book") | jest napisana | została napisana |
| zadanie (n., "task") | jest napisane | zostało napisane |
| listy (non-masc-pers. pl.) | są napisane | zostały napisane |
| studenci (masc-pers. pl.) | są wybrani | zostali wybrani |
Both the auxiliary and the participle agree, so they move together:
Książka została przetłumaczona na polski.
The book was translated into Polish. (feminine: została + przetłumaczona)
Wszystkie okna są otwarte.
All the windows are open. (non-masc-pers. plural: są + otwarte)
Nowi pracownicy zostali zatrudnieni w marcu.
The new employees were hired in March. (masc-personal plural: zostali + zatrudnieni)
Naming the agent: przez + accusative
To say by whom the action was done, Polish uses the preposition przez followed by the accusative. This trips up learners coming from other Slavic languages: Russian uses the instrumental for the agent, but Polish does not — it is przez + accusative.
Wiersz został napisany przez Szymborską.
The poem was written by Szymborska. (przez + accusative: Szymborską)
Ustawa została przyjęta przez parlament.
The act was passed by parliament. (przez parlament — accusative)
Zostałem ukąszony przez psa.
I was bitten by a dog. (przez psa — accusative)
The agent phrase pairs most naturally with zostać (the event passive), because naming who did something foregrounds the action. It can appear with the być-state passive too, but that is rarer and reads as describing a state whose author you happen to mention. More on the preposition's other uses in the przez page; for the full picture of zostać as a verb (it also means "to stay/remain"), see the zostawać / zostać reference.
When to prefer the się-passive instead
In speech, Poles often avoid the periphrastic passive altogether and use the impersonal / się-passive: Sprzedaje się mieszkanie rather than Mieszkanie jest sprzedawane. The być/zostać passive is the written/formal choice and the one you must use when naming an agent. For agentless statements in the past, the -no/-to impersonal (Zbudowano most) competes with the zostać passive and dominates in news and reports. The trade-offs among all three are laid out in passive and impersonal strategies.
Common Mistakes
Using być where the meaning is an event. If you mean something happened (with a time-point or an agent), you need zostać, not być. Był wybrany describes a state of being elected; został wybrany reports the election event.
❌ Prezydent był wybrany w niedzielę.
Odd — with a date this is the election EVENT → zostać.
✅ Prezydent został wybrany w niedzielę.
The president was elected on Sunday.
Marking the agent with the instrumental (Russian transfer). Polish uses przez + accusative for the agent, never a bare instrumental.
❌ List został wysłany sekretarką.
Incorrect — that instrumental reads 'sent by means of the secretary'. The agent is przez + accusative.
✅ List został wysłany przez sekretarkę.
The letter was sent by the secretary.
Failing to make the participle agree. The participle is adjectival and must match the subject's gender and number.
❌ Książka został napisany w 2010 roku.
Incorrect — książka is feminine: została napisana.
✅ Książka została napisana w 2010 roku.
The book was written in 2010.
Using zostać for a permanent property. A timeless characteristic ("is built of stone") is a state → być. zostać would wrongly suggest a one-time building event you're dating.
❌ Ten dom zostaje zbudowany z drewna.
Odd — a material property is a state → jest zbudowany.
✅ Ten dom jest zbudowany z drewna.
This house is built of wood.
Key Takeaways
- The passive = auxiliary + passive participle (-ny / -ony / -ty), and the participle agrees in gender, number, and the masculine-personal split.
- zostać + participle = the event ("got closed", with a time or agent). być + participle = the resulting state ("is closed").
- English "was" hides this event-vs-state split; Polish forces the choice.
- The agent is przez + accusative (przez Szymborską) — not the instrumental.
- In speech, the się-passive is usually preferred; in past-tense reports, the -no/-to impersonal.
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- The Passive Participle (-ny / -ty)B2 — The passive participle in -ny/-ony/-any or -ty ('done', 'written', 'opened', 'closed') — it builds the passive voice and works as an adjective, choosing its ending by verb class and mutating the stem.
- Impersonal się and the się-PassiveB2 — The everyday Polish way to say 'one does / you do / people do' without a subject — the impersonal się of signs, rules and generalisations, plus the się-passive for backgrounding the agent.
- The -no/-to Impersonal PastC1 — Polish's distinctively subjectless past form — zbudowano, znaleziono, otwarto — a frozen verb with no subject and no agent that keeps its object in the accusative, and is the voice of news, history and reports.
- stawać się / stać się — to becomeB2 — Full conjugation of stawać się / stać się ('become, turn into'), its instrumental-for-nouns government, its overlap with zostać, and its second life as 'to happen' (Co się stało?).
- Choosing a Passive/Impersonal StrategyC1 — The full register-graded menu for backgrounding an agent in Polish — być/zostać + participle, the się-passive, the -no/-to impersonal past, and trzeba/można — and which one is idiomatic where an English speaker would reach for the be-passive.