Sooner or later it happens to every new player. Your opponent’s pawn jumps over a square, lands right next to your pawn, and then your pawn… takes it by moving diagonally behind it. You stare at the board. Is that even legal?
It is. The move is called en passant (French for “in passing”), and it’s one of the three special moves in chess, along with castling and promotion. It only takes a few minutes to learn, and once you know it you’ll never be caught out by it again.
What is en passant?
Pawns normally move one square forward, but on their very first move they may move two. En passant is the rule that stops a pawn from using that double step to sneak past an enemy pawn without risk.
Here is the idea in three pictures. White has a pawn on e5. Black’s d-pawn is still on its starting square.
If Black had moved only one square, to d6, the white pawn on e5 could capture it in the normal way. By jumping straight to d5, the black pawn tries to slip past. En passant says: not so fast.
White captures by moving the e-pawn diagonally to d6, the square the black pawn skipped over, and the pawn on d5 is removed from the board.
The three conditions
En passant is only possible when all three of these are true:
- Your pawn is on its fifth rank. For White that’s the 5th rank, for Black the 4th rank (counting from White’s side).
- An enemy pawn has just moved two squares from its starting square and landed on the square directly beside your pawn.
- You capture immediately. You get exactly one chance: your very next move. If you play anything else, the right to capture that pawn en passant is gone for good.
That’s the whole rule. Only pawns can capture en passant, and only pawns can be captured en passant. A knight or bishop that lands beside your pawn can’t be taken this way.
Why does this rule exist?
The two-square first move was added to speed up the opening, so pawns don’t crawl forward one square at a time. But it created a loophole: a pawn could leap past an enemy pawn that was guarding the square in between. En passant closes that loophole. The pawn may still take its double step, but it can’t use it to escape a capture it would have faced on the square it skipped.
How to write en passant in notation
In algebraic notation an en passant capture looks like any other pawn capture: the file the pawn came from, an x, and the square it lands on. In our example that’s exd6, not exd5. Some books add “e.p.” to make it clear: exd6 e.p.
Computers record en passant too. A FEN string has a field for the en passant square: after Black’s …d5 above, it reads d6, telling any program that a capture on d6 is possible right now.
New to notation? Our guide on how to read chess notation covers the basics in five minutes.
En passant in a real opening
En passant isn’t just a puzzle trick. It turns up in real openings. Step through this line from Alekhine’s Defense, where White chooses to capture en passant on move three.
Black can capture en passant too. Here Black’s pawn reaches the 4th rank, and when White’s c-pawn jumps past it, Black takes.
Tricky cases (and common myths)
“You must capture en passant”
No. Like every capture in chess, en passant is optional. The only time you must play it is the same as any other move: if it’s your only legal move. Plenty of strong players decline it because the pawn on d5 is doing something useful for them, or because capturing would open a line for the opponent.
It can get you out of check
If a pawn’s double step gives check, you’re allowed to capture it en passant to escape. Here Black’s …d5 checks the white king on e4, and exd6 removes the checking pawn.
It can be illegal because of a pin
En passant is the only move in chess that removes two pawns from the same rank at once: your pawn leaves it and the captured pawn vanishes from it. Usually that doesn’t matter. But if your king and an enemy rook or queen share that rank, the capture can expose your king, which is never allowed.
“You can take a pawn that moved one square twice”
No. The enemy pawn must have made a single two-square move from its starting rank. A pawn that walked d7–d6 and then d6–d5 over two turns can’t be taken en passant.
Puzzle: en passant with a bang
Now use that “two pawns vanish” idea in your favor. Black has just played …g5, jumping past your f-pawn. White to move and checkmate in one.
If you spotted it, you’ve understood en passant better than most club players. The capture didn’t just win a pawn, it opened a whole rank.
Should you capture en passant?
Knowing the rule is step one. Deciding whether to use it is a normal chess decision, so ask the usual questions:
- Does it win material or open lines for my pieces? If capturing opens a file for your rook or a diagonal for your bishop, great.
- Does it help my opponent more? Sometimes taking leaves you with an isolated or doubled pawn, or opens a file toward your own king.
- Is the pawn on d5 (or wherever) a problem if I leave it? A pawn that slips past yours can become a passed pawn, and passed pawns tend to get stronger as the game goes on.
When in doubt in your own games, try both options on the analysis board afterwards and see what the engine thinks.
Practice it until it’s automatic
- The En Passant lesson in the course walks you through it move by move, with checks on every step.
- Our en passant puzzles are taken from real games where the special capture was the key.
- The Special Moves unit also covers castling and promotion, the other two special moves.