Hay: There Is / There Are in Spanish

Level: A1. Hay is the Spanish way to say “there is” and “there are”. It is a special form of the verb haber, and it has one job: to say that something exists or is present, without pointing to a particular, already-known thing.

The rule

Hay states existence or availability: that something is there, or how much of it there is. The pattern is hay + [thing]: hay un problema (there is a problem), hay dos cafés cerca (there are two cafés nearby).

The key feature is that hay is invariable — it does not change for singular or plural. One book or ten, it is still hay: hay un libro, hay muchos libros. There is no “hayn” and no “han” for this meaning.

What follows hay is something not yet identified: you use it with the indefinite article un/una, with numbers, with quantity words (mucho, poco, algo, nadie), or with no article at all. You do not use it with the definite article el/la — that would point to a specific, known thing, which is the job of estar.

Hay vs está

How to say it

Spanish spelling is regular; mind these few sounds from this lesson:

Example sentences

Each sentence was written for this lesson (not copied from a third-party corpus).

Common mistakes

• ❌ Hay el libro en la mesa. → ✅ Hay un libro en la mesa. / El libro está en la mesa. Hay does not take el/la; use it with un/una, a number or no article, and use estar for a known thing.
• ❌ Está un libro en la mesa. → ✅ Hay un libro en la mesa. For the existence of an unspecified thing, use hay, not está.
• ❌ Hayn muchos coches. / Han muchos coches. → ✅ Hay muchos coches. Hay is invariable; it never takes a plural ending.
• ❌ ¿Cuántos hay estudiantes? → ✅ ¿Cuántos estudiantes hay? The counted noun comes before hay in this question.
• ❌ Hay son tres sillas. → ✅ Hay tres sillas. Do not combine hay with ser; hay already means “there are”.

A short conversation

— ¿Hay un supermercado cerca? (Is there a supermarket nearby?) — Sí, hay uno en la esquina. (Yes, there is one on the corner.) — ¿Y dónde está el supermercado grande? (And where is the big supermarket?) — Está al lado del parque. (It’s next to the park.)

Notice the switch: hay introduces the supermarket; once it is the known “big supermarket”, estar locates it.

Usage notes

• One form only. Hay covers “there is” and “there are”; it does not agree with the noun that follows, unlike English.
• It comes from haber. In other tenses this existence verb does change — había (there was/were), habrá (there will be) — but in the present it is simply hay.
• Use it with quantities. Hay pairs naturally with numbers and amount words: hay tres, hay mucha gente, hay poco tiempo, no hay nada.
• “¿Qué hay?” literally “what is there?”, is also a casual “what’s up?” in everyday speech.

Compared with estar

• Estar gives the location of a known thing, while hay states that something exists. Hay un libro en la mesa introduces a book; el libro está en la mesa tells you where the known book is. A quick test: if the noun takes el/la/mi, use estar; if it takes un/una, a number or nothing, use hay. See the verb estar, and the fuller “to be” comparison in Ser vs Estar.

Quick recap before the quiz.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

Next

• Prerequisite to review: the verb estar
• Compare the two “to be” verbs: Ser vs Estar
• Back to the Spanish grammar section
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