Returning Void

By Frederic Bouchery

<?php

function foo(): void {
    return;
    return null;
}

A very large majority think that it doesn’t cause an error and yet, it does. PHP raises a fatal error during the compilation phase when the return type is “void” but the function contains return statements with values.

See Also

• Void (PHP manual)
• Double Return [Try me]

PHP Error Messages

• A void function must not return a value (did you mean “return;” instead of “return null;”?)

PHP Features

• return
• void

Last updated: 10 September 2026