# Hay: there is, there are

> id: grammar.verbs.haber-hay · category: grammar · depth: standard · levels: A1 · review: internally_reviewed

**Summary.** Hay expresses existence and never changes for plural: hay un café, hay muchos cafés. Other tenses: había, hubo, habrá — always singular.

Hay (from haber) introduces things whose existence is new information: hay un problema, ¿hay wifi? It pairs with indefinites and numbers, never with el/la: hay un banco, not *hay el banco.

It stays singular in every tense: había tres personas, hubo problemas, va a haber cambios. Saying *habían tres personas is extremely common but non-standard.

Hay is the impersonal present of haber; each tense has its own single invariable form — había, hubo, habrá, ha habido, va a haber — and none of them agrees with what follows. Don't confuse this existential haber with the auxiliary haber of compound tenses (he comido), which does conjugate for the subject.

## Examples
- Hay dos farmacias en esta cuadra. — There are two pharmacies on this block.
- No había nadie en la oficina. — There was nobody at the office.
- Antes había una farmacia aquí; ahora hay dos y pronto va a haber tres. — There used to be one pharmacy here; now there are two and soon there'll be three.

Related: grammar.verbs.haber-vs-estar, conjugation.present.irregular-haber

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