Future Perfect Grammar Quiz
12 multiple-choice questions on the English future perfect: 'will have + past participle', its use with time expressions such as 'by' and 'by the time', and how it differs from the future continuous. B2 level.
Keep building your grasp of the future perfect.
Future Perfect — FAQ
The future perfect is a tense used to talk about an action that will be completed before a certain point in the future. It is formed with 'will have' plus the past participle of the main verb. For example: 'By 2030, they will have finished the new railway.' It looks forward to a future moment and then looks back at an action that will already be complete by then.
The future perfect is formed with will + have + past participle. For example: 'I will have finished', 'She will have arrived', 'They will have left'. The negative is 'will not have' (won't have): 'He won't have finished by then'. The question form is 'Will ... have ...?': 'Will you have completed the report by Friday?'. The structure stays the same for all subjects.
We use the future perfect to say that something will be completed before a specific time or before another event in the future. It is very common with time expressions such as 'by', 'by then', 'by the time' and 'before'. For example: 'By the time you arrive, I will have cooked dinner' and 'They will have saved enough money by next summer'. The key idea is completion before a future point.
The most common time expressions with the future perfect are 'by' + a time (by 2030, by Friday, by next week), 'by then', 'by the time' + a clause, and 'before'. For example: 'By 2030 they will have finished', 'By the time the train leaves, we will have boarded'. Note that after 'by the time' and 'before', we use the present simple, not 'will'.
The future continuous (will be doing) describes an action in progress at a future moment: 'At 8pm tonight I will be watching the match.' The future perfect (will have done) describes an action completed before a future moment: 'By 8pm tonight I will have watched the match.' The continuous focuses on something happening, while the perfect focuses on something finished.
After 'by the time', 'when', 'before' and similar time conjunctions, we do not use 'will'; we use the present simple to refer to the future. So we say 'By the time you arrive, I will have finished' (not 'By the time you will arrive'). The main clause uses the future perfect 'will have finished', while the time clause uses the present simple 'arrive'.
Yes. The future perfect can express an assumption or prediction about something that is probably already complete now. For example, if your friend left two hours ago, you might say 'She will have arrived by now', meaning you assume she has already arrived. Here 'will have' shows a confident guess about a completed action, rather than a true future event.
The negative is formed with 'will not have' (or the contraction 'won't have') plus the past participle: 'They won't have finished by Monday.' The question is formed by putting 'will' before the subject: 'Will they have finished by Monday?'. Short answers use 'will' or 'won't': 'Yes, they will' or 'No, they won't'. The past participle stays the same in all forms.
Yes. The future perfect (will have done) focuses on the completion of an action before a future point: 'By June I will have written the report.' The future perfect continuous (will have been doing) focuses on the duration of an activity up to a future point: 'By June I will have been writing the report for three months.' Use the continuous form when you want to emphasise how long something has been going on.
The future perfect is usually introduced at upper-intermediate (B2) level on the CEFR scale. By this stage, learners already know the present perfect and the basic future with 'will', so they can combine these ideas to express completion before a future moment. Mastering it helps learners talk accurately about plans, deadlines and projections, which is useful in both everyday and professional English.