The passive voice lets you make the receiver of an action the subject of the sentence: not "Machado wrote the book" but "the book was written by Machado." Portuguese builds this exactly as English does in structure — with the verb to be plus a past participle — but with one feature English lacks: the participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. This page drills the ser-passive: how to form it, how agreement works, and the important fact that Brazilians frequently sidestep it in everyday speech.
The formula: ser (any tense) + past participle
The Portuguese true passive is ser conjugated for whatever tense you need, followed by the past participle of the main verb. The agent — the doer — is introduced with por ("by"), and is optional.
ser (tensed) + past participle (+ por + agent)
O livro foi escrito por Machado de Assis.
The book was written by Machado de Assis.
As cartas serão enviadas amanhã de manhã.
The letters will be sent tomorrow morning.
A casa é construída de tijolos e concreto.
The house is built of brick and concrete.
The verb ser carries the tense. Compare across the timeline with one sentence:
| Tense of ser | Sentence | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| present | O prédio é limpo todos os dias. | The building is cleaned every day. |
| preterite | O prédio foi limpo ontem. | The building was cleaned yesterday. |
| imperfect | O prédio era limpo aos sábados. | The building used to be cleaned on Saturdays. |
| future | O prédio será limpo amanhã. | The building will be cleaned tomorrow. |
Participle agreement — the feature English doesn't have
This is the part that requires real attention. In English the participle never changes: "the letter was written," "the letters were written," "the books were written" — written is invariable. In Portuguese, the participle behaves like an adjective and must agree with the subject in gender and number.
A carta foi escrita à mão.
The letter was written by hand. (feminine singular → escrita)
As cartas foram escritas à mão.
The letters were written by hand. (feminine plural → escritas)
O documento foi assinado pelo diretor.
The document was signed by the director. (masculine singular → assinado)
Os documentos foram assinados pelo diretor.
The documents were signed by the director. (masculine plural → assinados)
The four-way pattern for a regular participle like escrever → escrito: escrito (m sg), escrita (f sg), escritos (m pl), escritas (f pl). Get this wrong and a Portuguese reader hears it immediately, the way an English reader notices "the letters was written."
Note the contraction in the agent phrase: por + the definite article fuses — por + o = pelo, por + a = pela, por + os = pelos, por + as = pelas. So "by the director" is pelo diretor, not por o diretor.
O quadro foi pintado pela artista em 1920.
The painting was painted by the artist in 1920. (por + a → pela)
Why Brazilians often avoid the ser-passive
Here is the honest, practically important point. The ser-passive is fully correct and you will read it constantly — in newspapers, laws, academic writing, formal reports. But in everyday Brazilian speech it sounds formal and a little stiff, and native speakers routinely reach for livelier alternatives. If you want to sound Brazilian rather than merely be grammatical, you need to know the substitutes.
The two main escape hatches:
1. Active voice with an unspecified "they" (3rd person plural). Brazilians love to dodge the passive entirely by just using eles implicitly — the verb in the third-person plural with no stated subject.
Construíram a casa em seis meses.
They built the house in six months. (= The house was built in six months)
2. The impersonal/passive "se". A clitic se attached to an active verb produces a passive-like reading without ever naming an agent.
Vende-se casa nesta rua.
House for sale on this street. (literally: 'one sells a house here')
So the same idea can surface three ways, ranked roughly from formal to colloquial:
| Construction | Example | Register |
|---|---|---|
| ser-passive | A casa foi construída em seis meses. | formal / written |
| passive se | Construiu-se a casa em seis meses. | formal-neutral |
| 3rd-person-plural active | Construíram a casa em seis meses. | colloquial / spoken |
This avoidance is itself a contrast with English. English uses the passive freely in speech ("my phone got stolen," "the meeting was cancelled"), so English speakers tend to over-produce the ser-passive in Portuguese and end up sounding bookish. Calibrating down to the active-voice habit is part of sounding natural.
Don't confuse it with the estar-resultative
One more boundary to keep clear: ser + participle reports the action (something is/was done); estar + participle reports the resulting state (something is now in a certain condition). Same participle, different auxiliary, different meaning.
A porta foi aberta pelo porteiro.
The door was opened by the doorman. (ser → the action of opening)
A porta está aberta.
The door is open. (estar → the resulting state)
If you can name or imply a doer and a moment of action, you want ser. If you're just describing how things currently are, you want estar. The estar-resultative has its own page.
Common Mistakes
❌ As cartas foram escrito ontem.
Participle fails to agree — escrito is masculine singular but cartas is feminine plural.
✅ As cartas foram escritas ontem.
The letters were written yesterday.
❌ O livro foi escrito por o autor.
por + o must contract to pelo.
✅ O livro foi escrito pelo autor.
The book was written by the author.
❌ A casa está construída em 2010.
Estar describes a current state, not a past completed action with a date — use ser.
✅ A casa foi construída em 2010.
The house was built in 2010.
❌ Meu celular foi roubado na rua. (said casually to a friend)
Grammatical, but stiff for casual speech — sounds like a police report.
✅ Roubaram meu celular na rua.
My phone got stolen on the street. (natural spoken Brazilian)
❌ A reunião foi cancelado.
Reunião is feminine, so the participle must be cancelada.
✅ A reunião foi cancelada.
The meeting was cancelled.
Key Takeaways
- The true passive is ser (any tense) + past participle, with the optional agent introduced by por (which contracts: pelo, pela, pelos, pelas).
- The past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject — unlike English, where it's invariable.
- Only ser changes for tense; the participle changes only for agreement.
- In everyday Brazilian speech, native speakers often avoid the ser-passive in favor of the third-person-plural active (Construíram a casa) or the passive se (Vende-se). Reserve the ser-passive for formal and written register.
- Keep ser
- participle (action) distinct from estar
- participle (resulting state).
- participle (action) distinct from estar
Now practice Portuguese
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Ser-Passive (Formal Passive Voice)B1 — How to form the analytic passive with ser plus past participle, why the participle agrees with the subject, and why Brazilians rarely use it in speech.
- Estar in Resultative PassiveB1 — Estar plus a past participle describes the resulting state of a finished action — the door is open, the car is parked — and why Brazilians use it far more than the ser-passive.
- Why BR Speakers Avoid the Ser-PassiveB2 — Brazilian Portuguese strongly prefers active voice over the ser-passive — why, where the passive survives, and how to translate English passives naturally.
- Se-Passive (Sintética Passive)A2 — The passive with se plus a third-person verb that agrees with the logical object — vende-se, alugam-se — and why Brazilians often skip the agreement.
- Past Participle Agreement RulesB1 — When Portuguese past participles agree in gender and number with a noun, and the one case where they never do.