No. Read carefully what I wrote again: anonymous wrote : If the field is empty the hibernate validator won't run, if the field is not empty any hibernate validators specified will be run. anonymous wrote : JSF only runs validatation (in this case the HibernateValidator via the s:validate/s:validateAll tags) if the input field isn't empty. For your case just add a s:validate tag without required=true. In other words what I am saying is that all hibernate validators work as you describe EXCEPT @NotNull/@Length(min=1). View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3981735#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...