Hacer Conjugation: Full Table and Examples

This guide will get the hacer conjugation straight once and for all, in every tense you'll actually use.

In this guide I'll lay out hacer across all the major tenses, with full tables you can come back to whenever you're stuck. But I'll go further than a wall of charts. Hacer is one of the busiest verbs in Spanish: it means “to do” and “to make”, it powers most everyday weather phrases, it handles “ago” and “for”, and it hides inside dozens of everyday expressions. So you'll get the tables and the real-world uses that make them worth learning.

A quick reassurance before we get into it. Hacer is irregular, and irregular verbs have a reputation for being a slog. The good news: its irregularities are clustered and predictable. Learn a handful of quirky forms ( hago, hice, har-, hecho ) and the rest falls into familiar patterns. Master this one verb and you've opened up a huge slice of everyday Spanish conversation.

I learned hacer the way I learn everything: by needing it. On my first Spanish mission I couldn't get through a single morning without it. ¿Qué tiempo hace? (what's the weather like?), Hace dos años que estudio (I've been studying for two years), ¿Me haces un favor? (do me a favour). You reach for hacer constantly, which is exactly why it pays to know it cold.

What Makes Hacer Irregular

Before the tables, here's the map of where hacer misbehaves. Spot these four patterns and every table below makes sense:

Present tense: the yo form is hago (a g sneaks in), which then ripples into the present subjunctive and the usted command.

Preterite: a special stem hic- that drops its stress, giving hice, hiciste, hizo… Watch the third person: it's spelled hizo, not “hico”, because a c before o would harden the sound. The c changes to z to keep it soft.

Future and conditional: the stem shortens to har-, so it's haré and haría, never “haceré”.

Participle and command: the past participle is hecho, completely irregular, and the tú command is haz.

Everything else behaves. Now the tables.

Hacer Conjugation: Present Tense

The present ( presente ) is your day-to-day “do” and “make”. Only the yo form is irregular here.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

hago

I do/make

tú

haces

you do/make

él/ella/usted

hace

he/she does, you do

nosotros/as

hacemos

we do/make

vosotros/as

hacéis

you all do/make

ellos/ellas/ustedes

hacen

they/you all do

Example: Hago la cena todas las noches. (I make dinner every night.)

Hacer Conjugation: Preterite Tense

The preterite ( pretérito ) is for completed past actions. This is the table to drill, because it's the most irregular, and that sneaky hizo spelling trips up nearly everyone.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

hice

I did/made

tú

hiciste

you did/made

él/ella/usted

hizo

he/she did, you did

nosotros/as

hicimos

we did/made

vosotros/as

hicisteis

you all did/made

ellos/ellas/ustedes

hicieron

they/you all did

Example: Ayer hice todos mis deberes. (Yesterday I did all my homework.)

Note the stress: unlike regular preterites, hice and hizo are stressed on the first syllable, not the ending.

Hacer Conjugation: Imperfect Tense

Good news here. The imperfect ( imperfecto ), used for ongoing or habitual past actions, is completely regular for hacer.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

hacía

I was doing/making, I used to do

tú

hacías

you were doing/making

él/ella/usted

hacía

he/she was doing

nosotros/as

hacíamos

we were doing/making

vosotros/as

hacíais

you all were doing

ellos/ellas/ustedes

hacían

they were doing

Example: De niño hacía deporte cada día. (As a child I used to do sport every day.)

Hacer Conjugation: Future Tense

The future ( futuro ) uses the shortened stem har-, then the regular future endings. Learn the stem once and the whole column follows.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

haré

I will do/make

tú

harás

you will do/make

él/ella/usted

hará

he/she will do

nosotros/as

haremos

we will do/make

vosotros/as

haréis

you all will do

ellos/ellas/ustedes

harán

they will do

Example: Mañana haré una tarta. (Tomorrow I'll make a cake.)

Hacer Conjugation: Conditional Tense

The conditional ( condicional ), used for “would do/make”, shares the same har- stem as the future.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

haría

I would do/make

tú

harías

you would do/make

él/ella/usted

haría

he/she would do

nosotros/as

haríamos

we would do/make

vosotros/as

haríais

you all would do

ellos/ellas/ustedes

harían

they would do

Example: Yo haría las cosas de otra manera. (I would do things differently.)

Hacer Conjugation: Present Perfect

The present perfect ( pretérito perfecto ) is built from the present of haber plus the past participle. And here's where hacer ‘s irregular participle hecho earns its keep.

Pronoun

Conjugation

English

yo

he hecho

I have done/made

tú

has hecho

you have done/made

él/ella/usted

ha hecho

he/she has done

nosotros/as

hemos hecho

we have done/made

vosotros/as

habéis hecho

you all have done

ellos/ellas/ustedes

han hecho

they have done

Example: ¿Has hecho la reserva? (Have you made the booking?)

Don't confuse the participle hecho with echo (from echar, “to throw”). They sound identical but one has an h. He hecho (I have done) vs echo (I throw). The h is the tell.

Hacer Conjugation: Present Subjunctive

The present subjunctive ( presente de subjuntivo ) starts from the irregular yo form hago, swaps in subjunctive endings, and gives the stem hag- all the way through.

Pronoun

Conjugation

yo

haga

tú

hagas

él/ella/usted

haga

nosotros/as

hagamos

vosotros/as

hagáis

ellos/ellas/ustedes

hagan

Example: Quiero que hagas tu cama. (I want you to make your bed.)

Hacer Conjugation: Imperfect Subjunctive

The imperfect subjunctive ( imperfecto de subjuntivo ) builds off the preterite stem hic-. Spanish gives you two interchangeable sets of endings ( -ra and -se ); both are correct, and the -ra form is more common in speech.

Pronoun

• ra form

• se form

yo

hiciera

hiciese

tú

hicieras

hicieses

él/ella/usted

hiciera

hiciese

nosotros/as

hiciéramos

hiciésemos

vosotros/as

hicierais

hicieseis

ellos/ellas/ustedes

hicieran

hiciesen

Example: Si hiciera buen tiempo, iríamos a la playa. (If the weather were good, we'd go to the beach.)

Hacer Conjugation: Imperative (Commands)

Commands are where you tell someone to do something, or not to. The affirmative tú form is the irregular haz; the negative commands lean on the subjunctive hag- stem.

Pronoun

Affirmative

Negative

tú

haz

no hagas

usted

haga

no haga

nosotros/as

hagamos

no hagamos

vosotros/as

haced

no hagáis

ustedes

hagan

no hagan

Example: Haz tu trabajo, pero no hagas ruido. (Do your work, but don't make noise.)

If the negative side feels shaky, it's worth getting comfortable with how Spanish negatives work generally. Our guide to saying “no” in Spanish covers the broader pattern.

Hacer: Gerund and Past Participle

Two non-finite forms round out the picture:

Gerund (present participle): haciendo (“doing/making”). Use it for the continuous, as in Estoy haciendo la comida (I'm making the food). If the gerund is new to you, here's what a gerund is with examples.

Past participle: hecho (“done/made”), the irregular form you met above. It powers all the perfect tenses and also works as an adjective: un trabajo bien hecho (a job well done).

The Many Uses of Hacer

This is where hacer goes from “another verb to memorise” to “a verb you genuinely can't speak Spanish without”. Here are the uses that matter.

To Do and To Make

Hacer covers both English verbs, which is actually a relief: where English makes you choose between “do” and “make”, Spanish just uses hacer.

hacer la tarea: to do the homework

hacer la cama: to make the bed

hacer ejercicio: to do or get exercise

hacer un pastel: to make a cake

Talking About the Weather

This is a big one. In Spanish, weather is something the world does, so most weather phrases use hace (…