Missing return type declaration

Reports the functions that have no return type declaration specified.

Example:

// Missing function's return type declaration on foo()
function foo()
{
    return "foo";
}

After the quick-fix is applied:

function foo(): string
{
    return "foo";
}

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

PhpMissingReturnTypeInspection

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | PHP | Type compatibility

Inspection ID: PhpMissingReturnTypeInspection

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Missing return type declaration inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Ignore test methods

Option ID:

myIgnoreTestMethods

Default value:

Selected

Ignore empty functions

Option ID:

myIgnoreEmptyFunction

Default value:

Selected

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection PhpMissingReturnTypeInspection

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3, PhpStorm 2025.3, Qodana for JVM 2025.3, Qodana for PHP 2025.3,

Last modified: 03 December 2025