The Perfect Continuous Tenses in English

1. Present Perfect Continuous

Use:
✔ Actions that started in the past and continue now (I’ve been studying for 3 hours.)
✔ Recent actions with visible results (Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?)

Structure:
have/has + been + verb-ing

• "She has been working here since 2020."

Signal Words:
for, since, all day/week, lately, recently

Examples:

• "They have been waiting for the bus for 30 minutes."
• "Why are you sweaty? Have you been running?"

2. Past Perfect Continuous

Use:
✔ Emphasizes how long an action continued before another past action (He’d been teaching for 10 years before he retired.)

Structure:
had + been + verb-ing

• "We had been driving for hours when the car broke down."

Signal Words:
before, by the time, for, since

Examples:

• "Her hands were dirty because she had been gardening."
• "How long had you been sleeping before I called?"

3. Future Perfect Continuous

Use:
✔ Shows duration up to a future time (By 2026, I’ll have been working here for 5 years.)

Structure:
will + have + been + verb-ing

• "By midnight, they will have been dancing for 6 hours!"

Signal Words:
by (next year), for, when


Examples:

• "In December, you will have been learning English for 2 years."
• "How long will you have been traveling by the time you get home?"

4. Key Notes

Perfect Continuous vs. Perfect Simple:

• "I’ve been reading this book." (Focus: duration – still reading)
• "I’ve read this book." (Focus: completion – finished)

Need a summary table? Here’s a quick cheat sheet:

Tense	Formula	Example
Present Perfect Continuous	have/has + been + verb-ing	"I’ve been cooking since 5 PM."
Past Perfect Continuous	had + been + verb-ing	"She’d been running before it rained."
Future Perfect Continuous	will + have + been + verb-ing	"They’ll have been flying for 12 hours."

On PROMT.One Conjugator, you can find all the perfect continuous tense forms for English verbs.