German Passive Voice Made Simple: Werden vs Sein Explained

Should you say “das Fenster wird geöffnet” or “das Fenster ist geöffnet”? That tiny difference between werden and sein trips up even confident intermediate learners, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that shows up on Goethe and telc B1/B2 exams. Get it wrong, and you might accidentally describe a state instead of an action, or vice versa.

The good news: the German passive voice follows clear, learnable patterns. Once you understand the two main types and how they shift across tenses, you’ll be able to both recognize passive sentences on the reading and listening sections of your exam, and produce them correctly in your own writing and speaking.

This article walks you through everything: what the passive voice is, how to build it in every tense, the crucial difference between the Vorgangspassiv (process passive) and Zustandspassiv (state passive), and how to avoid the most common mistakes learners make.

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What Is the Passive Voice, and Why Does German Use It So Much?

In an active sentence, the subject performs the action:

• Der Mechaniker repariert das Auto. (The mechanic repairs the car.)

In a passive sentence, the focus shifts to the action itself or to the person/thing receiving the action. The person doing the action becomes optional:

• Das Auto wird repariert. (The car is being repaired.)
• Das Auto wird von dem Mechaniker repariert. (The car is being repaired by the mechanic.)

German uses the passive voice constantly — in instructions, news reports, academic writing, and official documents. It sounds more objective and impersonal, which is why you’ll see it everywhere from cooking recipes to job postings to Goethe-exam reading texts. If you want to sound like a fluent, natural writer at B1/B2 level, you need to be comfortable with it in both directions: understanding it and producing it.

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The Two Types of German Passive Voice

This is the part many textbooks gloss over, but it’s essential for accuracy.

1. Vorgangspassiv (Process Passive) — built with werden

This describes an action happening, a process in motion. It answers the question “what is being done?”

• Die Tür wird geschlossen. (The door is being closed.)
• Der Bericht wurde gestern geschrieben. (The report was written yesterday.)

2. Zustandspassiv (State Passive) — built with sein

This describes the resulting state after an action is complete. It answers “what condition is something in?”

• Die Tür ist geschlossen. (The door is closed.)
• Der Bericht ist geschrieben. (The report is written / done.)

Here’s the difference side by side:

German	Type	Meaning
Das Fenster wird geöffnet.	Vorgangspassiv	Someone is opening the window right now.
Das Fenster ist geöffnet.	Zustandspassiv	The window is already open (a state).
Die Rechnung wird bezahlt.	Vorgangspassiv	The bill is being paid (process).
Die Rechnung ist bezahlt.	Zustandspassiv	The bill is paid (result/state).

Exam tip: on reading comprehension sections, examiners love testing whether you understand this distinction. If a text says “das Problem ist gelöst,” that’s a finished state — not an ongoing action.

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Building the Vorgangspassiv: Step by Step

The formula is simple:

werden (conjugated) + Partizip II (past participle)

The past participle goes to the end of the sentence (or before the infinitive/second verb in compound tenses). If your grasp of participles feels shaky, it’s worth revisiting how German verb conjugation works before diving deeper into passive forms, since the participle is the anchor of every passive sentence.

Let’s take the active sentence “Der Lehrer korrigiert die Prüfung” (The teacher corrects the exam) and passivize it across tenses.

Tense	Passive Sentence	English
Präsens	Die Prüfung wird korrigiert.	The exam is (being) corrected.
Präteritum	Die Prüfung wurde korrigiert.	The exam was corrected.
Perfekt	Die Prüfung ist korrigiert worden.	The exam has been corrected.
Plusquamperfekt	Die Prüfung war korrigiert worden.	The exam had been corrected.
Futur I	Die Prüfung wird korrigiert werden.	The exam will be corrected.

Notice two important quirks:

1. In the Perfekt, the participle of werden shortens from geworden to just worden. This is a classic exam trap — never write “ist korrigiert geworden.”
2. In Futur I, you get a double werden: one as the future auxiliary, one as the passive auxiliary — wird … werden.

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Building the Zustandspassiv: Step by Step

The formula here is:

sein (conjugated) + Partizip II

This is structurally much simpler because sein conjugates the normal way you already know.

Tense	Passive Sentence	English
Präsens	Die Prüfung ist korrigiert.	The exam is corrected.
Präteritum	Die Prüfung war korrigiert.	The exam was corrected.
Perfekt	Die Prüfung ist korrigiert gewesen.	The exam has been (in a corrected state).

In practice, the Präsens and Präteritum forms of the Zustandspassiv are by far the most common. The Perfekt form sounds clunky and is rarely used in everyday German — you’ll mostly see ist/war + Partizip II.

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What Happens to the Agent (“by whom”)?

When you want to mention who performs the action in a passive sentence, German uses two different prepositions depending on the type of agent:

Preposition	Used for	Example
von + Dativ	a person or living agent	Das Bild wird von der Künstlerin gemalt.
durch + Akkusativ	a cause, means, or impersonal force	Die Stadt wurde durch das Erdbeben zerstört.

• Der Kuchen wird von meiner Oma gebacken. (The cake is baked by my grandma.)
• Das Dach wurde durch den Sturm beschädigt. (The roof was damaged by the storm.)

Most passive sentences in real German actually omit the agent entirely, especially when it’s unknown, obvious, or unimportant:

• Hier wird nicht geraucht. (No smoking here. — literally: “here is not smoked”)
• In der Fabrik werden täglich 500 Autos produziert. (500 cars are produced daily in the factory.)

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Passive Sentences With Modal Verbs

This combination shows up constantly on B1/B2 exams, especially in instructions and official texts. The structure is:

modal verb (conjugated) + Partizip II + werden (infinitive, at the end)

If modal verbs themselves still feel unfamiliar, it helps to review the core rules of German modal verbs first, since their conjugation doesn’t change here — only the sentence-final infinitive werden gets added.

Active	Passive
Man muss das Formular ausfüllen.	Das Formular muss ausgefüllt werden.
Man kann die Frage leicht beantworten.	Die Frage kann leicht beantwortet werden.
Man sollte den Vertrag unterschreiben.	Der Vertrag sollte unterschrieben werden.

This structure is everywhere in official German: instructions, contracts, manuals, and exam prompts. “Die Anmeldung muss bis Freitag eingereicht werden” (The registration must be submitted by Friday) is the exact tone you’ll encounter in telc and Goethe reading texts.

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Passive With Sentences That Have No Direct Object

Here’s something that surprises many learners: German can form a passive sentence even from intransitive verbs (verbs without an accusative object), using an impersonal construction with es or simply starting the sentence with something else:

• Es wird viel gelacht. (There’s a lot of laughing / People laugh a lot.)
• Am Wochenende wird lange geschlafen. (People sleep in late on weekends.)
• Im Büro wird nicht geraucht. (No smoking in the office.)

Note that es disappears when another element (like a time or place phrase) starts the sentence — it was only ever a placeholder, not a real subject.

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Confusing werden and sein passive. ❌ Die Tür wird geöffnet (meaning it’s already open) — wrong if you mean a finished state. ✅ Die Tür ist geöffnet. (correct for a state)

2. Using “geworden” instead of “worden” in the Perfekt. ❌ Das Auto ist repariert geworden. ✅ Das Auto ist repariert worden.

3. Forgetting to move the participle to the end with modals. ❌ Das Formular muss werden ausgefüllt. ✅ Das Formular muss ausgefüllt werden.

4. Mixing up von and durch. ❌ Die Stadt wurde von dem Erdbeben zerstört. (odd — an earthquake isn’t a “personal” agent) ✅ Die Stadt wurde durch das Erdbeben zerstört.

5. Forgetting subject-verb agreement when the object becomes the subject. Remember: the accusative object of the active sentence becomes the nominative subject of the passive sentence, so the verb must agree with it in number.

• Active: Der Chef lobt die Mitarbeiter (plural, accusative).
• Passive: Die Mitarbeiter werden gelobt. (plural verb, not “wird”)

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Quick Practice: Turn These Active Sentences Into Passive

Try converting these yourself before checking the answers below:

1. Die Firma stellt drei neue Mitarbeiter ein.
2. Man hat das Problem schon gelöst.
3. Der Sturm hat viele Bäume umgeworfen.

Answers:

1. Drei neue Mitarbeiter werden von der Firma eingestellt.
2. Das Problem ist schon gelöst worden. (or, describing the resulting state: Das Problem ist schon gelöst.)
3. Viele Bäume sind durch den Sturm umgeworfen worden.

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Bringing It All Together for Your Exam

The passive voice rewards pattern recognition more than memorization. Once you internalize that werden = action and sein = state, and that the participle always heads to the end of the clause, most of the confusion disappears. Pay close attention to how passive constructions appear in authentic materials — news articles, official notices, and exam-style reading texts are full of them. Resources like Deutsche Welle – Learn German offer excellent authentic listening and reading material where you can spot passive constructions in real context.

Before your next mock exam, try rewriting a handful of active sentences from your textbook into both passive forms — Vorgangspassiv and Zustandspassiv — and check whether the meaning still makes sense. This kind of active practice is what actually builds exam-day confidence.

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Want structured practice that adapts to your level and flags exactly where your passive-voice sentences go wrong? The Papagei app gives you targeted grammar drills, instant feedback, and exam-style exercises built specifically for Goethe, ÖSD, telc, and ECL candidates. Give it a try and turn passive-voice confusion into passive-voice confidence.