Have Something Done — Grammar Explained
Have something done is a special way to say that someone does something for you. It means you arrange for an action to happen, but you don’t do it yourself. This structure focuses on the action, not who does it.
Structure:
Person + have + noun + past participle (verb in the third form)
(This means: Someone else washes my car for me every week.)
Compare with:
(This means: I wash my car myself.)
Using Have Something Done in Different Tenses
You can use have something done in many English tenses:
| Tense | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Present Simple | I have my car washed every week. | Someone washes my car every week. |
| Present Continuous | I’m having my car washed this week. | Someone is washing my car now or this week. |
| Present Perfect Simple | I’ve had my car washed. | My car was washed recently. |
| Present Perfect Continuous | I’ve been having my car washed for the past hour. | My car has been washed for one hour. |
| Past Simple | I had my car washed yesterday. | Someone washed my car yesterday. |
| Past Continuous | I was having my car washed when Tom showed up. | My car was being washed when Tom arrived. |
| Past Perfect Simple | I had had my car washed before I left. | My car was already washed before I left. |
| Past Perfect Continuous | I had been having my car washed for a while when the phone rang. | My car was being washed for some time before the phone rang. |
| Future Simple | I will have my car washed tomorrow. | Someone will wash my car tomorrow. |
| Future Continuous | I will be having my car washed this time tomorrow. | My car will be being washed at this time tomorrow. |
| Future Perfect Simple | I will have had my car washed by tomorrow. | By tomorrow, my car will be washed. |
| Future Perfect Continuous | I will have been having my car washed for a year by next week. | By next week, I will have been having my car washed for one year. |
Other Forms
More Examples
Have Something Done vs Perfect Tenses
Have something done looks like Present Perfect or Past Perfect, but it is different:
Person + have/had + past participle + noun
(I did it myself.)
Person + have/had + noun + past participle
(Someone else prepared it for me.)
The order of words helps you tell the difference.
Get Something Done
Get something done means the same as have something done, but it is less formal.
Structure:
Person + get + noun + past participle
Have Someone Do Something
Use this when you want to say that someone arranges for a specific person to do something.
Structure:
have + person + base verb + rest of sentence
Get Someone to Do Something
This is like make someone do something, but it often means there was some difficulty or you needed to convince or pay the person.
Structure:
get + person + to + base verb
