Active and Passive Voice Rules: Change Any Tense in 5 Steps (2026)

Test yourself first, without scrolling down. Which of these three sentences is in the passive voice? (a) The clerk has stamped your form. (b) Your form has been stamped. (c) Your form looks fine.

Only (b) is passive. Active and passive voice differ in one thing: whether the subject does the action or receives it. A passive verb is always a form of be plus a past participle, which is why "has been stamped" qualifies and "looks fine" doesn't. If you got that right, this guide will make you faster. If you didn't, it will give you a method you can trust.

When you finish, you'll be able to:

• Spot a passive sentence in a few seconds, even in a long email
• Convert any active sentence with a simple five-step routine
• Use the right form of be in every tense, including modals
• Avoid the classic errors such as "The accident was happened"
• Decide when the passive helps your writing and when it hides meaning

What Is the Difference Between Active and Passive Voice?

In an active sentence, the subject is the doer. In a passive sentence, the subject is the thing that receives the action, and the doer either moves to the end after by or disappears.

Compare these two:

• Active: The accountant prepared the salary sheet.
• Passive: The salary sheet was prepared by the accountant.

The meaning is the same. What changes is the focus. The first sentence is about the accountant. The second is about the salary sheet.

The British Council's grammar reference on active and passive voice sums up the structure neatly: transitive verbs have both forms, and the passive is built from be plus a past participle. Only the be part changes for tense. The past participle (the third form of the verb, often called V3) never changes.

So the whole topic rests on one formula: object + form of be + V3 (+ by + doer). Everything else in this guide is that formula applied carefully.

Active and Passive Voice: The 5-Step Conversion Method

Most students who struggle with voice try to change the whole sentence at once. When you change active to passive, it's easier to work in a fixed order. I teach these five steps, and I ask students to say them out loud for the first week.

1. Find the object. Ask "what?" or "whom?" after the verb. In "The bank has approved our loan application," the answer is "our loan application." If there's no answer, stop. The sentence can't become passive.
2. Move the object to the front. It becomes the new subject. If it's a pronoun, switch it to subject form: me becomes I, him becomes he, them becomes they.
3. Name the tense of the active verb. "Has approved" is present perfect. Write down the matching form of be: has been or have been, depending on the new subject.
4. Add the past participle of the main verb. Approve becomes approved. Write becomes written, not wrote.
5. Decide on the doer. Add "by + doer" only if the reader needs it. If you keep it, use the object form of pronouns: by him, by her, by us, by them.

Result: "Our loan application has been approved by the bank." If everyone knows which bank you mean, "Our loan application has been approved" is cleaner.

The flowchart below puts the same routine on one page. Print it and keep it next to your grammar notebook for the first few days.

Passive Voice Rules for Every Tense

Use this table as your reference. Every row uses the same base sentence, "Sana prepares the salary sheet," so the passive voice examples line up and you can see that only the be part moves.

These forms match the tense list in the British Council's quick grammar page on passives, which also stresses that the past participle stays the same while be carries the tense.

What About the Perfect Continuous Tenses?

Many school charts in Pakistan list 12 tenses and expect a passive for each one. In practice, forms like "has been being prepared" or "will be being prepared" sound clumsy, and you'll rarely see them in real writing. If an exam asks for them, follow your teacher's chart. In an email or report, switch to the simple or perfect passive, or keep the sentence active. Our English tenses chart covers the active forms of all 12 tenses if you need a refresher first.

Modals, Two-Object Verbs and Phrasal Verbs

These three patterns cause most of the confusion after the basic tenses. Each one still follows the same formula.

Modals: Modal + Be + V3

After can, could, should, must, may and might, the passive is always modal + be + V3. "You must submit the form by Friday" becomes "The form must be submitted by Friday." Notice that "by Friday" here is a deadline, not a doer. Don't let the word by fool you.

For past possibility, use modal + have been + V3: "Someone might have deleted the file" becomes "The file might have been deleted."

Verbs With Two Objects

Verbs like give, send, offer and show can take two objects, so you get two possible passives. "The HR officer gave Ahmed the offer letter" can become:

• Ahmed was given the offer letter. (focus on the person)
• The offer letter was given to Ahmed. (focus on the thing)

The British Council reference shows the person-first version, "He was given a book," as a standard pattern. Both are correct. In job emails, the person-first version usually sounds more natural.

Phrasal Verbs

Keep the particle with the verb. "Management called off the meeting" becomes "The meeting was called off." Dropping "off" changes the meaning completely.

Reporting Verbs and the Informal Get Passive

The British Council's advanced passives review covers two patterns you'll see in news and reports. One starts with it: "It is estimated that..." The other moves the topic to the front: "Prices are expected to rise." The same page notes that informal English sometimes uses get instead of be, as in "My phone got stolen." That's fine when you're chatting, but use be in a formal letter or report.

Which Sentences Can't Be Made Passive?

Only verbs with an object can go into the passive. Verbs such as happen, arrive, sleep, die, go and come don't take an object, so they have no passive form.

That's why "The accident was happened" is wrong. Nothing "happened the accident." The correct sentence is simply "The accident happened." The same goes for "He was died" (correct: "He died") and "The train was arrived" (correct: "The train arrived").

A few verbs that do take an object still sound odd in the passive, especially verbs of state like have, resemble and fit. "Ali has a car" doesn't become "A car is had by Ali." When the passive sounds unnatural to you, trust that instinct and keep the active.

When Should You Choose the Passive Voice?

Here's the good news: the passive isn't a mistake. The Writing Center at Habib University makes this point clearly in its handout Using the Active and Passive Voice. Voice is a matter of clarity and style, not correctness. The handout says active is usually the stronger choice, but the passive has a place when the doer is unknown or unimportant, or when the receiver of the action matters more.

Purdue's Online Writing Lab, in Active Versus Passive Voice, adds a practical reason to prefer active most of the time: active sentences need fewer words, so they're easier to follow.

I give students two questions to ask before they choose:

1. Do I know who did it?
2. Does my reader care more about the doer or about the result?

Put those together and you get four situations, shown in the grid below.

One warning from the Habib handout is worth repeating: a passive can hide weak thinking. "Mistakes were made" tells the reader nothing about who should fix them. If responsibility matters, name the doer.

Active vs Passive in Office Emails and Reports

In a Pakistani office, business English uses both voices every day. A notice from admin, a fee reminder from a school, or a bank's SMS often uses the passive because the result matters more than who did the work: "Your cheque has been cleared," "The office will remain closed on Friday," "Fee challans have been issued."

Personal emails are different. When you're reporting your own work, the active voice shows ownership. "I sent the invoice on Monday" is clearer than "The invoice was sent on Monday," especially if your manager later asks who sent it.

Watch out for stacked passives too. "It was decided that the policy would be reviewed" makes the reader work hard. "The board decided to review the policy" says the same thing in fewer words and names who acted.

Here's a quick set of habits that keeps both voices working for you.

If you write a lot of office email, our guide to English phrases for office meetings, calls and email pairs well with this section.

Six Conversion Mistakes to Watch For

These come up again and again when I check students' exercise books and practice emails. Each one breaks a specific step of the method above.

For more errors of this kind, see 15 common English mistakes Pakistanis make.

How to Make Microsoft Word Flag Passive Sentences

Word can highlight passive sentences while you type, which is a useful check before you send a CV or report. Microsoft's grammar settings help page explains that you choose which issues Editor checks from the Editor pane on the Home tab.

A TechRepublic walkthrough for Microsoft 365 on Windows gives this route:

1. Go to File, then Options, then Proofing.
2. Next to the writing style list, choose Grammar, then click Settings.
3. Under Clarity, tick the two passive voice options.
4. Click OK twice, then press F7 to open Editor.

Editor then lists passive sentences under Clarity and often suggests an active version. Menu names can shift a little between Word versions, so look for the same words if your screen differs. Treat each suggestion as a prompt to think, not an order. Sometimes the passive is the right choice, as the grid above shows.

If you want to get comfortable with Word's proofing tools, settings and shortcuts, the Office Automation course covers MS Word in depth.

Practice: Convert These 8 Sentences

Cover the answers and try each one with the five steps. Say the tense out loud before you write.

1. The guard opens the gate at 8 am.
2. Our team is testing the new website.
3. Someone has stolen my bike.
4. The principal announced the results yesterday.
5. Workers were repairing the road all week.
6. The clerk had verified the documents before the interview.
7. We will send you the invoice tomorrow.
8. You should save the file every 10 minutes.

Answers:

1. The gate is opened at 8 am (by the guard).
2. The new website is being tested by our team.
3. My bike has been stolen.
4. The results were announced by the principal yesterday.
5. The road was being repaired all week.
6. The documents had been verified by the clerk before the interview.
7. You will be sent the invoice tomorrow, or: The invoice will be sent to you tomorrow.
8. The file should be saved every 10 minutes.

Check answer 3: the doer is "someone," so the by-phrase is dropped. Check answer 7: it's a two-object verb, so both versions are correct.

Practising Voice Out Loud in PSTA's English Course

English grammar rules stick when you use them in speech, not only on paper. The English Spoken & Grammar course at PSTA is a 3-month program for beginners. Its modules include Parts of Speech & Sentence Formation, Tenses & Grammar Usage in Speaking, Formal vs Informal English, and Email, CV & Message Writing, which is where voice choices matter most.

Right now the fee is Rs. 12,000, according to the course page, which shows Rs. 14,000 as the regular price. Classes run at our Abbottabad campus, and you can also join online from other cities. You can compare it with other programs on the all courses page, or read how to apply on the admission page. Want to check batch timings before you visit? Send a WhatsApp to +92 314 5424399 to ask about the next batch.

Rewrite Three Sentences From Your Last Email

Open the last email you sent at work or university. Find three sentences that use is, are, was, were, been or being followed by a past participle. For each one, ask the two questions: do I know the doer, and does my reader care? Rewrite the ones where the answer to both is yes. That 10-minute habit will improve your writing faster than another page of drills.

If you're also preparing applications, our guide on how to write a job application email shows where active sentences make the strongest impression.