Pasar is one of the workhorses of Spanish — morphologically simple and semantically enormous. It has zero irregularities, zero spelling changes, zero stem shifts; it conjugates exactly like hablar or comprar. But it does about ten different jobs in everyday speech: it means to pass (a place, a ball, an exam), to spend (time), to happen (in the impersonal ¿qué pasa?), to come in / come by (an invitation to enter), and several more. The challenge with pasar is therefore never the conjugation — it's choosing the right meaning for the context and remembering which prepositions go with which use.
This page lays out the full paradigm (mercifully short, because there's nothing irregular to mark) and then walks through the four core meanings in detail, the high-frequency idioms (pasárselo bien, pasar de algo, pasar página), and the small set of patterns that English speakers tend to fumble in their first year of Spanish.
Non-finite forms
| Form | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitivo | pasar | to pass, to spend, to happen, to come in |
| Infinitivo compuesto | haber pasado | to have passed / spent / happened |
| Gerundio | pasando | passing, spending, happening |
| Gerundio compuesto | habiendo pasado | having passed / spent / happened |
| Participio | pasado | passed; (as adj.) past, last, gone bad |
The participle pasado is one of the most-used adjectives in Spanish: la semana pasada (last week), el mes pasado (last month), el año pasado (last year). It also means gone off / spoiled when applied to food (la leche está pasada — the milk has gone off) and past one's best when applied to people (ese actor ya está pasado — that actor is past his prime).
Indicative — simple tenses
Presente
| yo | tú | él/ella/usted | nosotros | vosotros | ellos/ellas/ustedes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| paso | pasas | pasa | pasamos | pasáis | pasan |
Fully regular. The third-person singular pasa is one of the most-uttered single words in casual Spain Spanish, thanks to the greetings ¿qué pasa? (what's up?) and no pasa nada (no worries).
¿Qué pasa, tío? ¿Cómo estás?
What's up, mate? How are you?
Paso por tu casa sobre las siete, ¿vale?
I'll come by your place around seven, OK?
Pasamos por delante de tu antiguo colegio cada mañana.
We pass by your old school every morning.
Pretérito perfecto simple
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pasé | pasaste | pasó | pasamos | pasasteis | pasaron |
Fully regular -ar preterite. Note that the nosotros form is identical to the present indicative (pasamos) — context disambiguates.
¿Qué pasó ayer en la reunión? Me lo perdí entero.
What happened in the meeting yesterday? I missed the whole thing.
Pasé el verano en casa de mis abuelos, fue una maravilla.
I spent the summer at my grandparents' house, it was wonderful.
Pretérito imperfecto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pasaba | pasabas | pasaba | pasábamos | pasabais | pasaban |
Fully regular. Frequent in narratives for habitual or background past states: pasábamos los domingos en la sierra (we used to spend Sundays in the mountains).
De pequeños, pasábamos las tardes jugando al fútbol en la plaza.
As kids, we used to spend the afternoons playing football in the square.
Futuro simple
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pasaré | pasarás | pasará | pasaremos | pasaréis | pasarán |
Fully regular.
No te preocupes, todo pasará — es solo una mala racha.
Don't worry, this will all pass — it's just a rough patch.
Condicional
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pasaría | pasarías | pasaría | pasaríamos | pasaríais | pasarían |
¿Qué pasaría si no apareciera nadie a la fiesta?
What would happen if no one showed up to the party?
Indicative — compound tenses
Pretérito perfecto compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| he pasado | has pasado | ha pasado | hemos pasado | habéis pasado | han pasado |
In peninsular Spanish, this is the default for events that happened today or whose consequences are still ongoing. ¿Qué ha pasado? is the standard Spain phrasing for what happened? when the event is recent or still relevant.
Esta mañana ha pasado algo rarísimo en el metro, te lo cuento luego.
Something really weird happened on the metro this morning, I'll tell you later.
Pretérito pluscuamperfecto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| había pasado | habías pasado | había pasado | habíamos pasado | habíais pasado | habían pasado |
Cuando llegué, ya había pasado lo peor del temporal.
By the time I got there, the worst of the storm had already passed.
Futuro compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| habré pasado | habrás pasado | habrá pasado | habremos pasado | habréis pasado | habrán pasado |
Para cuando vuelvas de vacaciones, ya habrá pasado todo el lío.
By the time you come back from holiday, all the drama will have blown over.
Condicional compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| habría pasado | habrías pasado | habría pasado | habríamos pasado | habríais pasado | habrían pasado |
Sin tu ayuda, no habríamos pasado la inspección.
Without your help, we wouldn't have passed the inspection.
Subjunctive — simple tenses
Presente de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pase | pases | pase | pasemos | paséis | pasen |
Fully regular — no spelling change, just the standard -ar subjunctive endings. The phrase pase lo que pase (come what may, no matter what happens) is one of the most-uttered fixed subjunctive expressions in Spanish.
Pase lo que pase, mañana cojo el primer vuelo a casa.
No matter what happens, tomorrow I'm taking the first flight home.
Que pases un buen día, cariño.
Have a good day, sweetheart.
Imperfecto de subjuntivo (-ra / -se)
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ra | pasara | pasaras | pasara | pasáramos | pasarais | pasaran |
| -se | pasase | pasases | pasase | pasásemos | pasaseis | pasasen |
Tenía miedo de que pasara algo malo en el viaje, pero todo salió bien.
I was scared something bad would happen on the trip, but everything turned out fine.
Subjunctive — compound tenses
Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| haya pasado | hayas pasado | haya pasado | hayamos pasado | hayáis pasado | hayan pasado |
No me creo que haya pasado un año desde la boda de Marta.
I can't believe a year has gone by since Marta's wedding.
Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ra | hubiera pasado | hubieras pasado | hubiera pasado | hubiéramos pasado | hubierais pasado | hubieran pasado |
| -se | hubiese pasado | hubieses pasado | hubiese pasado | hubiésemos pasado | hubieseis pasado | hubiesen pasado |
Si hubiéramos pasado por allí cinco minutos antes, lo habríamos visto.
If we'd come by there five minutes earlier, we'd have seen him.
Imperative
| Form | Affirmative | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| tú | pasa | no pases |
| usted | pase | no pase |
| nosotros | pasemos | no pasemos |
| vosotros | pasad | no paséis |
| ustedes | pasen | no pasen |
¡Pasa! and ¡Pase, pase! are the standard ways to invite someone into your home — peninsular Spaniards open doors and immediately say pasa the way English speakers say come in.
Pasa, pasa, no te quedes en la puerta. ¿Quieres un café?
Come in, come in, don't stand at the door. Want a coffee?
The four core meanings of pasar
1. To pass — physical movement past a point
The original meaning. Pasar takes various prepositions depending on the geometry of the passing: pasar por (to pass through / by a place), pasar a (to move into / advance to), pasar de... a... (to go from X to Y).
Pasamos por Toledo de camino a Madrid.
We passed through Toledo on the way to Madrid.
El equipo ha pasado a la final tras una temporada increíble.
The team has advanced to the final after an incredible season.
By extension, you pasas an exam, the salt, a ball, a stage of life:
¿Me pasas la sal, por favor?
Could you pass me the salt, please?
Mi hijo pasó el examen de conducir a la primera.
My son passed his driving test on the first try.
2. To spend — time
When the object is a unit of time (el verano, dos horas, mucho tiempo), pasar means to spend. This is the meaning English-speakers most often mix up with gastar, which is for money, not time. You pasas time and gastas money — never the other way around.
Pasé dos horas esperando el autobús, una pesadilla.
I spent two hours waiting for the bus, a nightmare.
Mis hijos pasan demasiado tiempo con el móvil.
My kids spend too much time on their phones.
3. To happen — impersonal
In its impersonal use, pasar means to happen — equivalent to English what's going on?. The verb stays in the third person, with the event as the grammatical subject (or no explicit subject at all in ¿qué pasa?).
No pasa nada, tranquila, ha sido un accidente.
It's no big deal, don't worry, it was an accident.
¿Te pasa algo? Llevas toda la tarde callado.
Is something wrong? You've been quiet all afternoon.
The construction me pasa algo / te pasa algo / le pasa algo uses the gustar-style indirect object pronoun to mark whom the event is happening to.
4. To come in / come by — invitation or visit
Pasa on its own at a doorway means come in. Pasar por (un sitio) means to drop by, swing by a place — much shorter than the equivalent English construction.
Mañana paso por la oficina a recoger los papeles.
Tomorrow I'll swing by the office to pick up the papers.
High-frequency expressions with pasar
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pasarlo bien / mal | to have a good / bad time |
| pasárselo bomba / pipa / genial | to have a blast (Spain, informal) |
| pasar de algo / alguien | to not care about, ignore (Spain, informal) |
| pasar página | to move on (from a bad experience) |
| pasar de largo | to go right past without stopping |
| pasar por alto | to overlook |
| pasarse de la raya | to cross the line, go too far |
| se me ha pasado | I forgot / it slipped my mind |
| no pasa nada | no worries, no problem |
| ¿qué pasa? | what's up? |
Pasar de algo is one of the most peninsular phrases in this list — paso de política (I can't be bothered with politics), pasa de él (just ignore him). It carries a slight edge of dismissiveness that's hard to capture in English. Pasárselo bomba (or pasarlo bomba) is the colloquial Spain way to say you had an amazing time.
Lo pasamos pipa en Mallorca, ya tenemos ganas de repetir.
We had a great time in Mallorca, we're already itching to go back.
Paso de quedar con él, siempre llega tarde y se queja de todo.
I can't be bothered to meet up with him, he's always late and complains about everything.
Se me ha pasado por completo llamar a mi madre por su cumpleaños.
It completely slipped my mind to call my mother for her birthday.
Common Mistakes
❌ Gasté tres horas en la cola del banco.
Gastar is for money, not time. Use pasar for time spent.
✅ Pasé tres horas en la cola del banco.
I spent three hours in the queue at the bank.
❌ Pasé muy bien las vacaciones en Galicia.
The idiom pasarlo bien requires the direct-object pronoun lo: lo pasé bien, not pasé bien. The lo is mandatory — without it, the verb has no object and the sentence is ungrammatical in this idiomatic sense.
✅ Lo pasé muy bien en Galicia.
I had a really good time in Galicia.
❌ Pasé por el examen sin estudiar.
To pass an exam, pasar takes a direct object (no preposition): pasé el examen, not pasé por el examen. With por it means I went past the exam (room).
✅ Pasé el examen sin estudiar.
I passed the exam without studying.
❌ Pasamos un buen tiempo en la playa.
In Spain, the idiom is pasarlo bien (or pasar un buen rato), not pasar un buen tiempo. Tiempo for this meaning is a calque from English.
✅ Lo pasamos genial en la playa.
We had a great time at the beach.
❌ Mañana paso en tu oficina a recoger los papeles.
To drop by or swing by a place, Spanish uses pasar por, not pasar en. Pasar en isn't idiomatic for visits — por is the right preposition for movement through or by a location.
✅ Mañana paso por tu oficina a recoger los papeles.
Tomorrow I'll swing by your office to pick up the papers.
Key Takeaways
- Pasar is fully regular in every tense — no spelling changes, no stem shifts. The challenge is meaning, not morphology.
- The four core meanings are: to pass (movement past a point), to spend (time, never money — that's gastar), to happen (impersonal pasar), and to come in / by (invitations and visits).
- Pasarlo bien / mal and the Spain colloquials pasarlo bomba / pipa are the default way to talk about having a good or bad time.
- Pasar de algo (Spain, informal) means to not care about or ignore something — watch the polarity, it's easy to invert in your head.
- Pase lo que pase (no matter what) and no pasa nada (no worries) are two of the most-uttered fixed phrases in spoken Spain.
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- Presente de indicativo: verbos regulares en -arA1 — The six present-indicative endings for regular -ar verbs in peninsular Spanish, including the all-important vosotros form habláis.
- Pretérito indefinido: verbos regulares en -arA2 — The regular -ar preterite — endings -é, -aste, -ó, -amos, -asteis, -aron — with obligatory accents, the peninsular vosotros form, and the today/not-today rule that governs when to use it in Spain.
- Imperativo afirmativo de vosotros: ¡hablad!A2 — The peninsular affirmative vosotros command — replace the -r of the infinitive with -d, drop the -d before reflexives, and never substitute the infinitive.
- llegarA1 — Full conjugation reference for llegar — a regular -ar verb with one spelling quirk: g→gu before e (llegué, lleguemos) to keep the hard g sound. Covers the high-frequency llegar tarde / llegar a tiempo / llegar a + infinitive patterns and the always-tricky choice between llegar and venir.
- pagarA1 — Full conjugation reference for pagar — a regular -ar verb with the g→gu spelling change before e (pagué, paguemos) to preserve the hard /g/ sound. Covers the prepositions pagar a / pagar por / pagar con, the high-frequency idioms pagar a medias and pagar a tocateja, and why Spaniards usually say pagar (not gastar) when handing over money.
- llevarA1 — Full conjugation reference for llevar — a perfectly regular -ar verb that does the work of half a dozen English verbs (carry, wear, take a person, last, lead). Covers the indispensable llevo + time + gerundio duration construction that has no clean English equivalent.