Valer is one of those small Spanish verbs whose surface meaning — to be worth — barely hints at how often you'll actually use it. In peninsular Spain, valer covers price (¿cuánto vale?), worth in the moral sense (esa idea no vale nada), validity (el carnet vale hasta 2030), suitability (esa camisa no me vale), and — uniquely in Spain — the most universal okay in the spoken language: vale. Its conjugation carries two irregularities that come from completely different sources: a yo-go present (valgo) and a dropped-vowel future and conditional (valdré, valdría), where the -e- of the infinitive ending falls out and a -d- slips in. Every other tense is fully regular -er.
Non-finite forms
| Form | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitivo | valer | to be worth |
| Infinitivo compuesto | haber valido | to have been worth |
| Gerundio | valiendo | being worth |
| Gerundio compuesto | habiendo valido | having been worth |
| Participio | valido | been worth |
The gerund and the participle are both perfectly regular, which means every compound tense is unproblematic. The gerund and the participle are also rare in practice — valer is overwhelmingly used in the simple tenses, not the progressive or the compound forms.
Indicative — simple tenses
Presente
| yo | tú | él/ella/usted | nosotros | vosotros | ellos/ellas/ustedes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valgo | vales | vale | valemos | valéis | valen |
The yo form valgo shows the classic yo-go pattern — a -g- slipped in between the stem and the ending. This puts valer in the same family as tener (tengo), poner (pongo), salir (salgo), venir (vengo), hacer (hago), decir (digo), oír (oigo), caer (caigo), traer (traigo). Every other person is regular -er and needs no comment beyond the vosotros accent on valéis.
In peninsular speech, the third-person vale is by far the most-used form, and not just as the verb proper — vale is also the most common affirmative interjection in Spain (more on that below).
Yo valgo más de lo que me pagan, eso te lo digo yo.
I'm worth more than they pay me, I'll tell you that much.
¿Cuánto vale un café con leche en este bar?
How much is a coffee with milk at this café?
Pretérito perfecto simple
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valí | valiste | valió | valimos | valisteis | valieron |
The preterite is fully regular -er — no j-*stem, no special spelling. *Valer is one of the verbs that look irregular in the present but obey the rules in the preterite, which makes it different from tener (tuve) and poner (puse) despite the similar present pattern.
Aquel piso valió en su día una fortuna, y ahora apenas se vende.
That flat was worth a fortune in its day, and now it barely sells.
Esos esfuerzos valieron la pena al final.
Those efforts were worth it in the end.
Pretérito imperfecto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valía | valías | valía | valíamos | valíais | valían |
Regular. The imperfect is the natural tense for describing past prices and past worth as ongoing states — el café valía cincuenta céntimos cuando yo era niño.
En los noventa, este barrio valía la mitad que ahora.
In the nineties, this neighborhood was worth half what it is now.
Futuro simple
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valdré | valdrás | valdrá | valdremos | valdréis | valdrán |
This is the second irregularity. The future stem is vald-, not valer-: the -e- of the infinitive drops out and a -d- slips in. The same pattern produces tendré, pondré, saldré, vendré — all from the same set of verbs where Spanish historically refused to allow an awkward consonant cluster (*valeré, *tendré) and inserted a -d- as a phonetic cushion. Every person of the future takes a written accent on the final syllable, as with any future.
Dentro de diez años este coche no valdrá ni la chatarra.
In ten years this car won't even be worth scrap.
Te lo prometo: tu esfuerzo valdrá la pena.
I promise you: your effort will be worth it.
Condicional
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valdría | valdrías | valdría | valdríamos | valdríais | valdrían |
The conditional uses exactly the same modified stem vald- — once you have valdré, the conditional is automatic.
Si vendieras la casa ahora, te valdría una fortuna.
If you sold the house now, you'd get a fortune for it.
Más te valdría callarte cuando no sabes de qué hablan.
You'd do better to keep quiet when you don't know what they're talking about.
Indicative — compound tenses
All compound tenses pair haber with the regular participle valido.
Pretérito perfecto compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| he valido | has valido | ha valido | hemos valido | habéis valido | han valido |
Todo el esfuerzo ha valido la pena, al final hemos llegado.
All the effort has been worth it — we got there in the end.
Pretérito pluscuamperfecto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| había valido | habías valido | había valido | habíamos valido | habíais valido | habían valido |
Cuando lo vendieron, ya no había valido nada durante años.
By the time they sold it, it had been worth nothing for years.
Futuro compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| habré valido | habrás valido | habrá valido | habremos valido | habréis valido | habrán valido |
Para el año que viene, todo este sacrificio habrá valido la pena.
By next year, all this sacrifice will have been worth it.
Condicional compuesto
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| habría valido | habrías valido | habría valido | habríamos valido | habríais valido | habrían valido |
Si lo hubiéramos vendido hace cinco años, habría valido el doble.
If we'd sold it five years ago, it would have been worth double.
Subjunctive — simple tenses
Presente de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| valga | valgas | valga | valgamos | valgáis | valgan |
The valg- stem of the yo form spreads to every person of the present subjunctive — the standard rule for yo-go verbs.
No creo que esa propuesta valga lo que dicen.
I don't think that offer is worth what they say.
Dudo que valga la pena ir tan lejos para eso.
I doubt it's worth going all that way for that.
Imperfecto de subjuntivo (-ra / -se)
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ra | valiera | valieras | valiera | valiéramos | valierais | valieran |
| -se | valiese | valieses | valiese | valiésemos | valieseis | valiesen |
Built from the regular preterite valieron — so the imperfect subjunctive is regular too. Both endings are interchangeable; -ra dominates spoken peninsular Spanish.
Ojalá esta moneda valiera lo que valía hace veinte años.
If only this currency were worth what it was twenty years ago.
Subjunctive — compound tenses
Pretérito perfecto de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| haya valido | hayas valido | haya valido | hayamos valido | hayáis valido | hayan valido |
Me alegro de que la espera haya valido la pena.
I'm glad the wait has been worth it.
Pluscuamperfecto de subjuntivo
| yo | tú | él | nosotros | vosotros | ellos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ra | hubiera valido | hubieras valido | hubiera valido | hubiéramos valido | hubierais valido | hubieran valido |
| -se | hubiese valido | hubieses valido | hubiese valido | hubiésemos valido | hubieseis valido | hubiesen valido |
Si hubiera valido más, lo habríamos vendido sin pensar.
If it had been worth more, we'd have sold it without thinking twice.
Imperative
| Form | Affirmative | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| tú | vale | no valgas |
| usted | valga | no valga |
| nosotros | valgamos | no valgamos |
| vosotros | valed | no valgáis |
| ustedes | valgan | no valgan |
The imperative of valer as a true verb is rare — you don't often command something to be worth something. The forms exist for completeness, but in practice you'll almost never produce them. What you will produce constantly is the homophonous interjection vale, which is morphologically the present-indicative él form rather than an imperative. That distinction matters for one reason: vale in conversation is invariant — you do not say valed when speaking to several people, even though grammatically it would be the vosotros affirmative.
Que esta vez valga el esfuerzo, por favor.
May the effort be worth it this time, please.
The peninsular vale — Spain's universal okay
Vale is the single most distinctive feature of spoken peninsular Spanish, and it deserves its own section. Latin American Spanish uses bueno, está bien, listo in the same slot; in Spain, vale covers all of them. The word is technically the present-indicative third-person form of valer, but in conversation it has been reanalyzed as a free-standing affirmation that doesn't change for the addressee.
Acknowledgment
The closest equivalent to English okay or got it.
Quedamos a las ocho en la entrada del metro. — Vale, allí nos vemos.
Let's meet at eight at the metro entrance. — Okay, see you there.
Agreement
Saying yes to a proposal.
¿Te apetece una caña antes de comer? — Vale, una pequeña.
Fancy a beer before lunch? — Sure, a small one.
Permission
Granting authorization.
¿Puedo coger el coche este finde? — Vale, pero ten cuidado.
Can I take the car this weekend? — Yes, but be careful.
Closing or pivoting in a conversation
Vale, vale repeated often signals enough, let's move on.
Vale, vale, ya lo he entendido, no hace falta que lo repitas.
Okay, okay, I get it, you don't need to repeat yourself.
The fixed question ¿vale?
Tacked onto the end of a sentence, it works like English okay? — checking that the listener is on board.
Te llamo cuando salga del trabajo, ¿vale?
I'll call you when I leave work, okay?
This use of vale is so saturating in Madrid speech that a learner who has never used it will sound noticeably foreign within seconds of opening their mouth.
Valer as to cost / be worth in price contexts
For the price of something concrete, valer and costar are near-synonyms in Spain, with valer slightly more frequent in informal speech.
¿Cuánto vale ese jersey? — Veinticinco euros.
How much is that jumper? — Twenty-five euros.
No te lo compres, vale demasiado para lo que es.
Don't buy it — it costs too much for what it is.
For more abstract worth (a person's qualities, an idea's merit), valer is the default choice and costar doesn't fit.
Tu hermana vale muchísimo, no la dejes escapar.
Your sister is a real catch, don't let her get away.
Valer as to be valid / to be acceptable
A second core meaning: validity in the sense of something counts, something is allowed.
El billete vale para todo el día, puedes usarlo varias veces.
The ticket is valid for the whole day — you can use it several times.
Eso no vale, hemos quedado en que el límite era una hora.
That doesn't count — we agreed the limit was an hour.
Más vale — a key idiomatic construction
The fossilized phrase más vale + infinitive / que + subjunctive means it's better to / you'd better. This is one of the most frequent triggers of the subjunctive in everyday Spanish and is worth committing to memory.
Más vale prevenir que curar.
Better safe than sorry. (literally: it's better to prevent than to cure)
Más vale que llegues a tiempo, que el avión no espera.
You'd better arrive on time — the plane won't wait.
Más nos valdría callarnos antes de meter la pata.
We'd do well to keep quiet before putting our foot in it.
High-frequency collocations from peninsular Spain
| Phrase | Translation |
|---|---|
| valer la pena | to be worth it |
| más vale | (idiomatic) it's better to, you'd better |
| no valer nada | to be worthless |
| no valer para algo | to be no good at something, not suited to |
| hacer valer algo | to assert, to enforce (a right, a claim) |
| vale tela | (informal) it costs a lot of money (tela = money in slang) |
| ¡vale ya! | (informal) that's enough! |
| no hay nada que valga | (idiomatic) nothing will do, no excuse holds |
No valgo para los números, siempre se me han dado fatal las matemáticas.
I'm no good at numbers — I've always been terrible at maths.
¡Vale ya con esa música, que llevamos toda la tarde!
That's enough with that music — we've been at it all afternoon!
Common Mistakes
❌ Yo valo más que eso.
The yo form is valgo, with the yo-go -g-. Valo does not exist.
✅ Yo valgo más que eso.
I'm worth more than that.
❌ Este coche valerá mucho dentro de unos años.
The future stem is vald- (vowel drop + d inserted): valdrá, not valerá.
✅ Este coche valdrá mucho dentro de unos años.
This car will be worth a lot in a few years.
❌ No creo que vale la pena.
No creer que triggers the subjunctive: valga, not vale.
✅ No creo que valga la pena.
I don't think it's worth it.
❌ Más vale que llegas a tiempo.
Más vale que requires the subjunctive in the dependent clause: llegues, not llegas.
✅ Más vale que llegues a tiempo.
You'd better arrive on time.
❌ Vales, nos vemos a las ocho.
The interjection vale is invariant — it doesn't agree with the addressee. Don't conjugate it.
✅ Vale, nos vemos a las ocho.
Okay, see you at eight.
Key Takeaways
- Valer has two irregularities: the yo-go present (valgo) and the dropped-vowel future and conditional (valdré, valdría), where the -e- falls out and a -d- is inserted.
- Every other tense is fully regular -er. The preterite valí, valiste, valió is not a *j-*stem.
- The same vowel-drop + d pattern appears in tener, poner, salir, venir (tendré, pondré, saldré, vendré) — they form a tight family worth learning together.
- Vale in conversation is the single most peninsular feature of spoken Spanish in Spain — used for acknowledgment, agreement, permission and as a sentence-final tag. It is invariant and never conjugated to match the addressee.
- The idiom más vale (que)
- subjunctive is one of the most reliable subjunctive triggers in everyday Spanish.
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