@Nullable and @NotNull are annotations on the return type of the method, so it makes sense to place them after all modifiers, like public static @NotNull String doSomething(). However, @Override is an annotation on the method itself, so it makes sense to place it before all modifiers and possibly on a new line, like @Override public final void something(). Currently IDEA will not allow me to tell the formatter to do things like this. I suggest either providing a new tab in Code Style settings where I could add @Nullable and @NotNull to a list of after-modifiers annotations, OR, preferably, add a new annotation to annotations.jar called @ReturnTypeAnnotation which applies to annotations. Then @Nullable and @NotNull could be declared with this annotation.