Once you know that the Romanian passive is built from a fi (to be) plus an agreeing participle — the structure laid out on The Passive with a fi + participle — moving it through time is mechanical and reassuringly regular. You conjugate only the auxiliary a fi, in whatever tense or mood you need, and you leave the participle exactly where it is. The participle's one and only job is to agree in gender and number with the subject; it never changes for tense. This page is the systematic tense-and-mood tour: present, imperfect, perfect compus, future, conditional, subjunctive, and pluperfect — with the participle agreement held constant so you can see the auxiliary do all the work.
The principle: tense lives on a fi, agreement lives on the participle
English already works this way: "the house is built / was built / will be built / has been built" — only the be-part changes; built is frozen. Romanian does the same, with one addition English lacks: the participle agrees with the subject. So you are tracking two independent things at once:
- Tense/mood → expressed by conjugating a fi.
- Gender/number of the subject → expressed by the participle ending (-Ø / -ă / -i / -e).
These two never interfere with each other. Pick the tense, pick the agreement, snap them together.
Casa este construită. → Casa va fi construită.
The house is built. → The house will be built. (only 'a fi' changed; 'construită' stays feminine sg.)
The full paradigm (subject: feminine singular casa "the house")
Watch a fi march through the tenses while construită sits unchanged, feminine singular throughout.
| Tense / mood | Form of a fi | Passive | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present | este | casa este construită | the house is built |
| Imperfect | era | casa era construită | the house was (being) built |
| Perfect compus | a fost | casa a fost construită | the house was built |
| Pluperfect | fusese | casa fusese construită | the house had been built |
| Future (literary) | va fi | casa va fi construită | the house will be built |
| Future (colloquial) | o să fie | casa o să fie construită | the house will be built |
| Conditional | ar fi | casa ar fi construită | the house would be built |
| Subjunctive | să fie | (ca) casa să fie construită | (that) the house be built |
Note how the future and the conditional already contain a fi (the infinitive of a fi): va *fi construită and ar **fi construită. That is normal — those tenses of *a fi are themselves periphrastic, so you simply use them as-is. You never stack a second auxiliary.
Podul era construit deja când ne-am mutat aici.
The bridge was already built when we moved here. (imperfect — era)
Documentele fuseseră semnate înainte de ședință.
The documents had been signed before the meeting. (pluperfect — fuseseră)
Raportul va fi trimis mâine dimineață.
The report will be sent tomorrow morning. (future — va fi)
O să fie rezolvată problema până la sfârșitul săptămânii.
The problem will be solved by the end of the week. (colloquial future — o să fie)
Casa ar fi vândută deja, dacă prețul ar fi mai mic.
The house would already be sold if the price were lower. (conditional — ar fi + vândută)
Vreau ca scrisoarea să fie expediată azi.
I want the letter to be sent today. (subjunctive — să fie)
The participle agreement, held across all tenses
Now flip the variable. Keep the tense fixed (perfect compus, a fost) and change the subject's gender and number — the participle tracks the subject, and the auxiliary a fost / au fost tracks number too.
| Subject | Passive (perfect compus) | Participle |
|---|---|---|
| blocul (neut. sg.) | a fost construit | construit (-Ø) |
| casa (fem. sg.) | a fost construită | construită |
| blocurile (neut. pl.) | au fost construite | construite |
| casele (fem. pl.) | au fost construite | construite |
| copiii (masc. pl.) | au fost premiați | premiați |
Ușa a fost construită din stejar masiv.
The door was built from solid oak. (fem. sg. — construită)
Casele au fost construite în anii '70.
The houses were built in the '70s. (fem. pl. — construite)
Cei trei suspecți au fost reținuți de poliție.
The three suspects were detained by the police. (masc. pl. — reținuți)
This is the layer English simply does not have: in English "was built / were built" the participle built is invariable. In Romanian you must read the subject's gender and number off the noun and put the right ending on the participle every single time.
Where the participle agreement comes from
It helps to know why the participle agrees here when it stubbornly refuses to agree in the perfect compus (am construit casa — construit frozen). The difference is the auxiliary. With a avea (perfect compus), the participle is locked into the verb system and is invariable. With a fi as a copula, the participle behaves like a predicate adjective describing the subject's state — and Romanian predicate adjectives agree. So casa este construită parses just like casa este nouă ("the house is new"): copula + agreeing adjective. The full participle inventory and which verbs have irregular participles is collected on the participle reference.
Cartea este scrisă în două limbi.
The book is written in two languages. (este = copula → scrisă agrees, fem. sg.)
Am scris cartea anul trecut.
I wrote the book last year. (am = a avea → scris invariable)
That minimal pair — este scrisă (agrees) vs am scris (frozen) — is the whole story. The auxiliary chooses the behavior.
A register reminder
This periphrastic passive belongs above all to writing: news, official prose, technical and academic text, and any context where you name the agent. In speech, Romanian leans heavily on the se-passive instead (Casa se construiește repede). Knowing the full tense paradigm matters for reading newspapers and documents — and for the cases where you genuinely do need a fi — but don't deploy it on every sentence; see Choosing the Passive: se vs a fi.
Legea va fi promulgată de președinte săptămâna viitoare.
The law will be promulgated by the president next week. (formal, future)
Common Mistakes
❌ Casa va construită mâine.
Wrong — you dropped 'fi'. The future of the passive is 'va fi construită'.
✅ Casa va fi construită mâine.
The house will be built tomorrow.
❌ Casa este construit anul trecut.
Two errors — feminine subject needs 'construită', and a past event needs 'a fost', not 'este'.
✅ Casa a fost construită anul trecut.
The house was built last year.
❌ Documentele au fost semnat ieri.
Wrong — plural subject 'documentele' needs the plural participle 'semnate'.
✅ Documentele au fost semnate ieri.
The documents were signed yesterday.
❌ Problema o să fie rezolvat curând.
Wrong — feminine subject 'problema' needs 'rezolvată'; the tense is fine on 'o să fie'.
✅ Problema o să fie rezolvată curând.
The problem will be solved soon.
❌ Ușa este fost închisă.
Wrong — don't stack 'este' + 'fost'. Conjugate 'a fi' once: 'este închisă' or 'a fost închisă'.
✅ Ușa a fost închisă. / Ușa este închisă.
The door was closed. / The door is closed.
Key Takeaways
- The passive moves through time by conjugating a fi only: este / era / a fost / fusese / va fi / o să fie / ar fi / să fie
- participle.
- The participle never carries tense; it carries agreement with the subject's gender and number (-Ø / -ă / -i / -e).
- Run a two-step check: set the tense on a fi, then agree the participle with the subject.
- The agreement exists because a fi is a copula and the participle is a predicate adjective — unlike the perfect compus, where a avea freezes it.
- This passive is a written-register tool; in speech prefer the se-passive.
Now practice Romanian
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- The Passive with a fi + participleB2 — Romanian's periphrastic passive — a fi in any tense plus an agreeing participle, with an optional 'de (către)' agent — and the crucial fact that this participle agrees while the perfect-compus participle does not.
- Past Participles: Master Reference TableB1 — The consolidated lookup table for Romanian past participles — regular -at/-ut/-it classes and the Class III scatter across -s (mers, pus, închis), -t (rupt, copt, fript), and -ut (băut, căzut) — the one form that also powers the supine, passive, and pluperfect.
- Choosing the Passive: se vs a fiB2 — A decision guide for Romanian's two passives — the se-passive for generic, agentless, habitual statements, and a fi + participle for a specific completed event with a nameable agent.
- The Agent Phrase (de, de către)B2 — How Romanian marks the 'by X' agent in a passive — de către in formal register, plain de colloquially and for non-human cause or instrument — and why the language usually prefers to drop the agent entirely with the se-passive.
- Voice in Romanian: Active, Passive, Reflexive, ImpersonalB2 — A consolidation of the whole voice system. Romanian layers four voices on the verb — active, the a fi passive (a fost construit, agent with de / de către), the lighter se-passive (se construiește, agentless), and the reflexive/middle/impersonal se. Since se does triple duty, telling its three jobs apart turns on two questions: is there an implied agent, and does the subject act on itself?