incluir

Incluir — "to include, to comprise, to contain (as a component)" — is one of the highest-frequency -uir verbs in modern Spanish, especially in administrative, journalistic, and academic writing. The price tag incluye IVA (price includes VAT) is on every Spanish receipt; the hotel offer desayuno incluido is in every booking; the journalist's standard sentence entre los heridos se incluyen tres menores is everywhere in news.

Morphologically, incluir follows the standard -uir pattern — the same one that governs huir, construir, contribuir, distribuir, influir, destruir, sustituir, atribuir, concluir, excluir, intuir, instruir, fluir. You insert a y between stem and ending whenever the ending begins with a vowel other than i, and you convert the unstressed -i- of certain endings into y between vowels. Once you know the rule from the huir page, every -uir verb is yours.

What's worth its own page about incluir is the register: it is a markedly more formal verb than its rough English equivalent. In casual peninsular Spanish, where English speakers might say include, Spaniards often use meter, poner, añadir, agregar or simply rephrase. Knowing when to reach for incluir and when not to is part of sounding natural.

Non-finite forms

The participle incluido serves double duty as an adjective: gastos incluidos (expenses included), desayuno incluido (breakfast included). There is an older participle form incluso (no relation to the adverb-conjunction incluso meaning "even"), but it is now used only adjectivally in very specific legal phrases (cláusula inclusa — included clause) and never in compound tenses. Modern Spanish uses incluido in every compound construction.

Indicative — simple tenses

Presente

The y appears in every form whose ending starts with a vowel other than i — yo, tú, él, ellos. The nosotros form incluimos and the vosotros form incluis keep the plain stem. As with huir/huis, the 2010 RAE spelling reform writes vosotros incluis without an accent (formerly it was incluís); both spellings circulate, but the unaccented form now dominates educated writing.

Pretérito perfecto simple

The yo form incluí requires the obligatory accent on the final í (same rule as caí, leí, hui). The third-person incluyó and incluyeron show the i → y conversion between vowels.

Pretérito imperfecto

Regular -ir imperfect with endings -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían. All forms carry the accent on í to mark the hiatus.

Futuro simple

Future built on the full infinitive incluir-. No y in any form because the endings begin with é, á, e, é, á — none triggers the -uir rule.

Condicional

Indicative — compound tenses

All compound tenses pair haber with the regular participle incluido. The participle keeps the i — no y conversion.

Pretérito perfecto compuesto

Pretérito pluscuamperfecto

Futuro compuesto

Condicional compuesto

Subjunctive — simple tenses

Presente de subjuntivo

Every form takes y — because every ending begins with -a, a vowel other than i. The cleanest tense in the paradigm. The vosotros form incluyáis carries the obligatory accent.

Imperfecto de subjuntivo (-ra / -se)

Built on the incluy- stem inherited from the third-person preterite incluyeron. Every form takes y. -Ra dominates spoken Spain; -se is more formal/literary.

Subjunctive — compound tenses

Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo

Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo

Imperative

The affirmative tú form incluye takes the y (ending -e). The affirmative vosotros form incluid keeps the plain stem because the ending -id doesn't trigger the rule. All negative imperatives use the subjunctive — and there the y reappears.

Register: incluir vs meter, poner, añadir, agregar

This is the part of incluir that textbooks rarely cover well. Incluir is markedly formal — it belongs to written, administrative, and journalistic registers. In casual speech, peninsular Spanish often prefers other verbs:

So a Spaniard texting a friend would write Mete dos cervezas más en la nevera (toss two more beers in the fridge), not Incluye dos cervezas más en la nevera. The latter would sound robotic. Reserve incluir for genuinely formal contexts — written invitations, contracts, instructions, journalism — or when you mean "include as part of a defined set."

The journalistic phrase entre los X se incluyen Y ("among the X are included Y") is a fixed media formula and worth recognising: Entre las víctimas se incluyen tres menores (among the victims are three minors).

High-frequency collocations from peninsular Spanish

The phrase todo incluido is the standard Spanish translation of the English travel-industry "all-inclusive" — you will see it on every package-holiday brochure. IVA incluido (VAT included) is mandatory by law on Spanish price tags showing consumer prices; if a vendor quotes a price sin IVA, expect roughly 21% extra at the till.

The classic English-speaker error: incluir vs the -y- insertion

The most reliable English-speaker error with incluir is producing forms without the y: incluo instead of incluyo, inclue instead of incluye, inclueron instead of incluyeron, incluiendo instead of incluyendo. The fix is to internalise the rule rather than memorise each form: whenever the ending starts with a vowel other than i, drop in the y.

A second very common error is register-misuse: applying incluir in casual speech where Spanish would prefer meter, poner, añadir. This won't be ungrammatical, but it makes the learner sound like a bureaucrat. The repair is to read the room: if you'd write the same sentence in a contract, incluir is fine; if you'd text it to a friend, prefer meter or poner.

A third error is using the older participle incluso as the verbal participle. Incluso is now exclusively an adverb-conjunction meaning "even" (incluso yo lo sabía — even I knew) or "including" (incluso los lunes — even on Mondays). The verbal participle is incluido: he incluido, not he incluso.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Incluir follows the standard -uir orthographic pattern. Insert y between stem and ending whenever the ending begins with a vowel other than i; convert the unstressed i of certain endings into y between vowels.
• Forms with y: incluyo, incluyes, incluye, incluyen, incluya, incluyas, incluya, incluyamos, incluyáis, incluyan, incluyó, incluyeron, incluyendo, incluyera/incluyese (entire imperfect subjunctive).
• Forms without y: incluimos, incluis, incluí, incluiste, incluimos, incluisteis, incluido, incluía, incluiré and the entire future and conditional.
• The yo preterite incluí requires its written accent; the vosotros form incluis now goes unaccented (post-2010 RAE rule), but you will still see incluís in older texts.
• The participle is incluido, not the older incluso (which is now only an adverb-conjunction meaning "even" or "including").
• Incluir is markedly formal. In casual speech, prefer meter, poner, añadir, agregar depending on context.
• The same paradigm covers every -uir verb: huir, construir, contribuir, distribuir, influir, destruir, sustituir, atribuir, concluir, excluir, intuir, instruir, fluir.