Passive voice – as opposed to Active voice – highlights the recipient that is acted upon by the agent of the verb. Accordingly, the recipient of the action (be it a person or thing) becomes the sentence’s subject and is thus under the spotlight. Conversely, the active performer is relegated to second place. Read on.

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Portuguese Passive-voice vs. Active-voice sentences

In Portuguese, Passive-voice sentences comprise the auxiliary verb ser – either in the Present, Past, or Future tense – followed by the Past Participle of the main verb.

Let’s take an example where we compare Active and Passive voice constructions:

As you can see above, in the Active-voice sentence, Paulo is the subject and the agent who makes a phone call (the action). 

In the Passive-voice sentence, on the other hand, the phone call itself becomes the grammatical subject of the sentence, and Paulo is the passive agent (and no longer the active performer).  

Again, the Passive voice implies a compound verb structure where the auxiliary verb ser is followed by the main verb  (fazer in the example above) in the Past Participle. 

Auxiliary verb – Ser indicates the tense

By default, the auxiliary verb – ser – sets the tense of the Passive-voice sentence. Here’s the verb ser conjugated in the Present, Past, and Future tenses:

As you’ll see in the usage examples below, Passive-voice sentences using progressive tenses call to auxiliary compound verb structures with both estar and ser. In that case, estar – not ser – will set the tense of the sentence.

Learn how ser and estar compare: Portuguese Verbs Ser vs. Estar: How and When to Use Either.

Main verb – Past Participle anatomy

In Passive-voice sentences, the main verb always comes in the Past Participle form.

Regular participles

It is simple to form the Past Participle. We only need to replace the Infinitive form endings –ar, -er, and -ir with either –ado or –ido according to the table below: 

Irregular Participles

A few verbs have irregular Past Participles:

Shifting Participles

Finally, some verbs have two Past Participles, one conforming to the regular pattern we saw above, and another irregular. 

While the regular form is used in compound verb structures with the auxiliary verbs ter and haver, the irregular one is used with ser and estar. 

In other words, the irregular alternative is the form used in Passive-voice sentences.

Here are a few examples of verbs with shifting Participles:

One thing to remember is that, in Passive-voice sentences, the Past Participle will comply with the subject’s number and gender.

That’s done according to our basic declension patterns: o, a, os, as. 

Take for instance the verb cozer and its Past Participle cozido. Here are its endings according to the subject’s number and gender it refers to:

It works the same way for all Participles irrespective of whether they belong to regular, irregular, or shifting groups. 

Here’s a complementary read about the Past Participle: Past Participle in Portuguese: Conjugation and Usage.

Usage examples

Now that you understand how Passive-voice sentences work, it is time to look into a few usage examples for each of the three tenses: Present, Past, and Future.

Present

For the Present tense, I will be using verbs with regular Participles:

Here’s another example using the Present Continuous as an auxiliary. 

As you may know, Progressive tenses always call for estar and so the auxiliary verb will now be a compound structure with estar followed by ser (the former sets the tense).

Remember that Progressive tenses look slightly different in European and Brazilian Portuguese:

Learn more about the Present tense: Portuguese Present Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English.

Past

For the Past tense, I am using verbs with irregular Participles:

Let’s now use the Portuguese equivalent of the Past Continuous as an auxiliary. Again, the European and Brazilian Portuguese will look slightly different:

Learn more about the Past tense: Portuguese Past Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English.

Future

I will use verbs with shifting Past Participles to show you the Future tense:

We often express the Future tense with the auxiliary verb ir. In that case, our auxiliary verb becomes a compound structure consisting of ir conjugated in the Present tense and followed by ser in the Infinitive:

Learn more about the Future tense: Portuguese Future Tenses – Usage Rundown Anchored to English.