Cuándo is the Spanish question word for "when." It is invariable — no plural, no gender — and like every other interrogative in Spanish, it always carries the written accent in questions and exclamations. Most of its everyday work is straightforward: drop it in front of a verb and you have a question about time. The interesting part is what happens when you pair it with prepositions (¿desde cuándo?, ¿hasta cuándo?, ¿para cuándo?) and when it sits inside a larger sentence (embedded questions) — and the contrast with its accent-less twin cuando, which is a completely different word.
The basic question: ¿cuándo?
¿Cuándo? goes at the front of a direct question, followed immediately by the verb. No subject pronoun is needed; no auxiliary like English do/does/will.
¿Cuándo vienes?
When are you coming? — Present tense in Spanish often covers near-future plans, the way 'are coming' does in English.
¿Cuándo es la fiesta?
When is the party? — Ser + temporal noun = when an event takes place.
¿Cuándo llega tu hermana?
When does your sister arrive? — Subject (tu hermana) follows the verb, never before it.
¿Cuándo te jubilas?
When do you retire? — Present used for a planned near-future event.
In Peninsular Spanish, the typical answer is the bare adverbial: mañana, el lunes, en agosto, a las tres. You can answer with a full clause if needed — Cuando termine el trabajo ("When I finish work") — but that cuando in the answer has no accent because it's no longer an interrogative.
With prepositions: desde cuándo, hasta cuándo, para cuándo
Like every Spanish question word, cuándo refuses to leave prepositions stranded at the end. Whatever preposition modifies the time relation has to come before cuándo.
¿Desde cuándo? — since when
¿Desde cuándo? asks about the starting point of an ongoing situation. The answer is usually a moment or a duration counted backward from now.
¿Desde cuándo vives en Madrid?
How long have you been living in Madrid? — Literally 'since when do you live in Madrid?' Spanish uses present tense (vives) for an ongoing situation, where English uses present perfect ('have been living').
¿Desde cuándo lo sabes?
How long have you known? — Same construction: present tense for an ongoing state, ¿desde cuándo? + present.
¿Desde cuándo te interesa la política?
Since when have you been interested in politics? — Often carries a sceptical tone in Spanish, just like English.
This is one of the patterns where Spanish tense use diverges from English. The English present-perfect "how long have you lived…" maps to Spanish present-tense "¿desde cuándo vives…?". Spanish reasons that the action is still going on, so the present tense is the right tool; English requires the perfect because the action started in the past. Both languages are internally consistent; they just carve up the same situation differently.
¿Hasta cuándo? — until when, how long
¿Hasta cuándo? asks about the endpoint of an ongoing situation. Hasta means "until," and the question is "up to when?"
¿Hasta cuándo te quedas?
How long are you staying? — Literally 'until when do you stay?' Asking for the endpoint of the stay.
¿Hasta cuándo estará abierto el museo?
How long will the museum be open? — Future tense (estará) because the endpoint is in the future.
¡Hasta cuándo tenemos que aguantar esto!
How long do we have to put up with this! — Exclamation of impatience; cuándo still bears the accent in exclamative use.
¿Para cuándo? — by when, for when
¿Para cuándo? asks about a deadline or a target date. Para in this construction means "by" or "for" in the sense of "for the day of."
¿Para cuándo necesitas el informe?
When do you need the report by? — Para cuándo for a deadline.
¿Para cuándo es la cita?
What day is the appointment for? — Para cuándo for a scheduled date.
The trio ¿desde cuándo?, ¿hasta cuándo?, ¿para cuándo? covers most of the temporal-preposition territory. Other useful ones:
| Form | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ¿Cuándo? | when (a point in time) | ¿Cuándo vienes? |
| ¿Desde cuándo? | since when / how long | ¿Desde cuándo vives aquí? |
| ¿Hasta cuándo? | until when / how long | ¿Hasta cuándo te quedas? |
| ¿Para cuándo? | by when / for when | ¿Para cuándo lo quieres? |
| ¿De cuándo? | of when (e.g. a date stamp) | ¿De cuándo es esta foto? (When is this photo from?) |
Embedded (indirect) questions: no sé cuándo…
When cuándo lives inside a larger sentence rather than at the head of a direct question, it keeps the written accent. This is the rule shared by every interrogative in Spanish — meaning, not punctuation, decides.
No sé cuándo viene.
I don't know when he's coming. — Embedded question; cuándo with accent.
Dime cuándo terminas.
Tell me when you finish.
Me pregunto cuándo se acordará.
I wonder when he'll remember.
No me ha dicho desde cuándo lo sabe.
He hasn't told me how long he's known. — Embedded question with a preposition; desde cuándo keeps the accent.
A useful test: replace the cuándo clause in English with a noun like "the time". If the meaning of the larger sentence still makes sense as "I don't know the time he comes" (= when he comes), you have an embedded question. Embedded questions take the accent. If the cuando is acting more like a conjunction meaning "whenever" or "at the time when," you have the relative/conjunction cuando with no accent.
The crucial contrast: cuándo vs cuando
Cuándo with an accent is interrogative ("when?"). Cuando without an accent is a conjunction meaning "when" in the sense of "at the time that" or "whenever." Same letters, two different jobs.
| Spelling | Function | Example |
|---|---|---|
| cuándo (with accent) | interrogative or exclamative "when" | ¿Cuándo vienes? / No sé cuándo. |
| cuando (no accent) | conjunction "when" / "whenever" | Te llamaré cuando llegue. |
The minimal pair is real:
No sé cuándo viene.
I don't know when he's coming. — Embedded question: cuándo with accent.
Lo sé cuando viene.
I find out / I know when he comes. — Conjunction cuando, no accent: 'at the time he comes'. Different meaning entirely.
The second sentence — Lo sé cuando viene — means something like "I know when he arrives" in the sense of "the moment he gets here, I have the information." Without the accent, cuando introduces a temporal clause; with the accent, it introduces an embedded question about when. Spanish marks the difference with one accent mark, and the difference is real.
A second crucial detail: in Spanish, cuando (no accent) followed by a verb referring to the future takes the subjunctive, not the indicative. Te llamaré cuando llegue ("I'll call you when I arrive") — llegue is present subjunctive because the arrival hasn't happened yet. This is one of the most reliable subjunctive triggers in the language, and it's a different topic from this page; for now, just remember that cuando + future-meaning verb = subjunctive.
Exclamatives: ¡cuándo…!
Used in exclamation, cuándo expresses impatience, longing, or surprise. It still carries the accent.
¡Cuándo aprenderás!
When will you ever learn! — Idiomatic exclamation of mild reproach; cuándo with accent in exclamative use too.
¡Cuándo será el día en que vivamos en paz!
When will the day come when we live in peace! — Literary register; subjunctive vivamos triggered by the relative el día en que. (literary)
Cuándo for asking about era or date
A nice extra: ¿De cuándo es…? asks when something dates from — common with photos, films, news articles, books.
¿De cuándo es esta foto?
When is this photo from? — Standard way to ask about the date of a photograph or document.
¿De cuándo es esa noticia?
How old is that news item? — Literally 'of when is that news?'
Common mistakes
❌ ¿Cuando vienes?
Missing accent. The interrogative requires the written accent.
✅ ¿Cuándo vienes?
When are you coming?
❌ ¿Cuándo tú vienes?
Subject pronoun between question word and verb — Caribbean, not Peninsular.
✅ ¿Cuándo vienes (tú)?
When are you coming? — No subject pronoun is needed; if used, it follows the verb.
❌ ¿Cuánto tiempo vives aquí?
Mixes two structures. ¿Cuánto tiempo? asks for a duration as the answer; ¿Desde cuándo? asks for the starting point. Both work, but combining them like this is wrong.
✅ ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas aquí? / ¿Desde cuándo vives aquí?
How long have you been here? — Two correct ways: with llevar + time + gerund/place, or with ¿desde cuándo?
❌ No sé cuando viene.
Missing accent in an embedded question.
✅ No sé cuándo viene.
I don't know when he's coming. — Embedded questions keep the accent.
❌ ¿Cuándo es para?
Preposition stranded — impossible in Spanish.
✅ ¿Para cuándo es?
When is it for? — Para travels to the front of cuándo.
❌ ¿Desde cuándo has vivido aquí?
Wrong tense. The Spanish ¿desde cuándo? construction pairs with the present, not the present perfect, for an ongoing situation.
✅ ¿Desde cuándo vives aquí?
How long have you lived here? — Present tense vives in Spanish for an ongoing situation; the English present perfect does not translate one-for-one.
Key takeaways
- Cuándo is invariable and always carries the written accent in questions and exclamations.
- Prepositions go in front: ¿desde cuándo?, ¿hasta cuándo?, ¿para cuándo?, ¿de cuándo? — never at the end.
- ¿Desde cuándo + present tense? translates English's "how long have you been -ing"; Spanish uses present, not present perfect, for an ongoing situation.
- Embedded questions keep the accent: no sé cuándo, dime cuándo, me pregunto cuándo.
- Cuándo (with accent) vs cuando (no accent) is a meaningful contrast — interrogative vs conjunction. No sé cuándo viene ≠ Lo sé cuando viene.
- No subject pronoun and no auxiliary are needed in the question. If you name the subject, it goes after the verb: ¿Cuándo viene Pedro?, never ¿Cuándo Pedro viene?
- The conjunction cuando (no accent) referring to a future event triggers the subjunctive: te llamo cuando llegue. That's a separate topic — but worth flagging now so the difference between the two cuandos is fully drawn.
Now practice Spanish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- ¿Dónde?: preguntar por lugarA1 — How to use ¿dónde? in Spanish — location, destination (¿adónde?), origin (¿de dónde?) and path (¿por dónde?), with the no-stranding rule and the no-inversion freedom that English speakers find surprising.
- ¿Qué?: preguntar por informaciónA1 — How to use ¿qué? to ask 'what' in Spanish — definitions, choices, qué + noun for selection, exclamatives, and the all-important written accent that distinguishes the interrogative from the relative.
- Adverbios de tiempoA1 — The peninsular toolkit for when: hoy, ayer, mañana, anoche, ahora, antes, después, luego, ya, todavía/aún, pronto, tarde, temprano. Covers the mañana ambiguity, the ya/todavía polarity, and the discourse glue (entonces, mientras, de repente).
- Adverbios interrogativos: ¿cómo?, ¿dónde?, ¿cuándo?A1 — Spanish interrogative adverbs — qué, cómo, cuándo, dónde, quién, cuánto, por qué, para qué — all wearing a written accent that distinguishes them from their unaccented relative cousins. The accent IS the grammar.
- Otras preposiciones: bajo, ante, tras, hacia, hasta, desdeB1 — The 'minor' simple prepositions of Spanish — bajo, ante, tras (mostly formal), and hacia, hasta, desde (everyday) — round out the inventory beyond the core a, de, en, con, por, para.
- Tildes: cuándo y por quéA2 — The Spanish written accent — the tilde — does three jobs: mark non-default stress, distinguish homophones (el/él, tu/tú, si/sí), and mark interrogative pronouns. Covers the post-2010 RAE reforms that abolished the accent on demonstrative pronouns and on sólo.