Estar is the second half of the Portuguese "to be." Where ser handles identity and essence, estar handles the temporary and the situational: how you feel right now, where a thing currently is, what's happening at this moment, and the state something is in after a change. It's irregular, extremely common, and — uniquely among Brazilian verbs — it has a whole set of clipped forms (tô, tá, tão) that are completely standard in everyday speech.
Conjugation
| Subject | Full form | Spoken / informal |
|---|---|---|
| eu | estou | tô |
| tu (regional) | estás | tás / tá |
| você / ele / ela | está | tá |
| nós | estamos | tamos / 'tamo |
| vocês / eles / elas | estão | tão |
Eu estou cansado, foi um dia longo.
I'm tired; it was a long day.
Eles estão atrasados de novo.
They're late again.
The tô / tá / tão contractions
This is one of the most important things to understand about real spoken Brazilian Portuguese. In casual speech — and in informal writing like text messages, WhatsApp, song lyrics, and dialogue in fiction — Brazilians routinely drop the initial es- of estar. Estou becomes tô, está becomes tá, estão becomes tão, estamos becomes tamos (or even 'tamo).
Tô com fome, vamos comer alguma coisa?
I'm hungry; shall we go eat something?
Tá tudo bem com você?
Is everything okay with you?
A gente tá quase chegando, calma.
We're almost there, relax.
The word tá has even spread beyond the verb to become a standalone particle meaning "okay" or "right?": "A gente se vê amanhã, tá?" ("See you tomorrow, okay?"). That's how deeply embedded these forms are.
Core uses of estar
Temporary states and feelings
Use estar for conditions that can change — moods, physical sensations, health, temperature.
Ela está feliz porque passou na prova.
She's happy because she passed the exam.
O café está quente, cuidado.
The coffee is hot, careful.
Compare with ser: ela é feliz describes her as a generally happy person (a trait); ela está feliz describes how she feels at this moment (a state). The same adjective, two verbs, two meanings.
Physical location of things and people
Where something currently is takes estar. This is the mirror image of the ser-for-events rule on the ser page: events use ser, but the location of a concrete thing or person uses estar.
O carro está na garagem.
The car is in the garage.
Onde você está? Estou na frente do cinema.
Where are you? I'm in front of the movie theater.
For locations felt as permanent or fixed (a building, a city), Brazilians often prefer ficar instead of estar (a padaria fica na esquina), but estar is never wrong for present location.
Ongoing actions (the progressive)
Estar plus a gerund (-ndo) builds the progressive — exactly like English "to be ...-ing." This is one of the most frequent structures in the language.
Está chovendo lá fora, leva o guarda-chuva.
It's raining outside; take the umbrella.
O que você está fazendo agora?
What are you doing right now?
For the full mechanics of this construction, see estar + gerúndio.
A small but important difference from European Portuguese: Brazil uses estar + gerund (estou comendo), while Portugal uses estar + a + infinitive (estou a comer). If you're learning the Brazilian variety, the gerund is the form to internalize — a comer will sound distinctly Portuguese to a Brazilian ear.
Eu estou trabalhando agora, te ligo mais tarde.
I'm working right now; I'll call you later.
Estar com — the "to be with" idiom
Brazilians use estar com ("to be with") plus a noun where English uses "to be" plus an adjective, especially for bodily sensations and feelings. You are with hunger, with cold, with sleepiness.
Estou com fome e com sono ao mesmo tempo.
I'm hungry and sleepy at the same time.
A criança está com medo do escuro.
The child is afraid of the dark.
This pairs naturally with the verb of states: a sensation that comes and goes is exactly what estar is for. Note that you have these things idiomatically (estar com fome), so don't reach for an adjective like "faminto" in casual speech — it sounds overly dramatic.
Result of a change
Use estar with a past participle to describe the state something is in after an action — the door is open, the window is broken, the store is closed.
A janela está aberta, foi o vento.
The window is open; it was the wind.
A loja já está fechada a esta hora.
The store is already closed at this hour.
This is a state, not the action of opening or closing — it answers "how is it now?" Hence estar.
Common mistakes
❌ Eu sou cansado hoje.
Incorrect — tiredness is a temporary state, so it takes estar.
✅ Eu estou cansado hoje.
I'm tired today.
❌ Tô cansado. (in a formal report)
Incorrect register — the contraction is informal only; write the full form.
✅ Estou cansado.
I'm tired.
❌ A reunião está na sala dois.
Incorrect — the location of an event takes ser, not estar.
✅ A reunião é na sala dois.
The meeting is in room two.
❌ Está chove lá fora.
Incorrect — the progressive needs the gerund (-ndo), not the present indicative.
✅ Está chovendo lá fora.
It's raining outside.
❌ Nós estão prontos.
Incorrect — nós takes estamos, not estão.
✅ Nós estamos prontos.
We're ready.
❌ Eu estou fome.
Incorrect — for sensations, use estar com plus the noun.
✅ Estou com fome.
I'm hungry.
Key takeaways
- Estar = estou, estás, está, estamos, estão — irregular and high-frequency.
- The clipped forms tô / tá / tamos / tão are fully standard informal Brazilian; use them when speaking, swap to full forms in formal writing.
- Use estar for temporary states, current location of things/people, the progressive (-ndo), and the result of a change.
- The contrast with ser lives in the difference between a trait (ser) and a state (estar); see the dedicated ser vs estar guide.
Now practice Portuguese
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Present Indicative of SerA1 — How to conjugate the verb ser in Brazilian Portuguese and when to use it for identity, origin, time, and the location of events.
- Ser vs Estar: Decision GuideA1 — The core 'to be' decision in Brazilian Portuguese — ser for essence and identity, estar for state and condition — with the essence-vs-state test that beats the misleading 'permanent vs temporary' rule.
- Estar + Gerúndio: The ProgressiveA1 — How Brazilian Portuguese builds the present progressive with estar plus the gerund — and why estar a comer marks you as Portuguese.
- Summary of Irregular Present Indicative FormsA2 — A consolidated reference table of the most common irregular Brazilian Portuguese verbs in the present indicative, grouped by the type of irregularity — suppletive stems, -g-/-ç- eu forms, -z- stems, and vowel-changing -ir verbs.