How to stop EditText from gaining focus at Activity startup in Android

Adding the tags android:focusableInTouchMode="true" and android:focusable="true" to the parent layout (e.g. LinearLayout or ConstraintLayout) like in the following example, will fix the problem.

<!-- Dummy item to prevent AutoCompleteTextView from receiving focus -->
<LinearLayout
    android:focusable="true" 
    android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
    android:layout_width="0px" 
    android:layout_height="0px"/>

<!-- :nextFocusUp and :nextFocusLeft have been set to the id of this component
to prevent the dummy from receiving focus again -->
<AutoCompleteTextView android:id="@+id/autotext"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:nextFocusUp="@id/autotext" 
    android:nextFocusLeft="@id/autotext"/>

Is the actual problem that you just don't want it to have focus at all? Or you don't want it to show the virtual keyboard as a result of focusing on the EditText? I don't really see an issue with the EditText having a focus on the start, but it's definitely a problem to have the softInput window open when the user did not explicitly request to focus on the EditText (and open the keyboard as a result).

If it's the problem of the virtual keyboard, see the AndroidManifest.xml <activity> element documentation.

android:windowSoftInputMode="stateHidden" - always hide it when entering the activity.

or android:windowSoftInputMode="stateUnchanged" - don't change it (e.g. don't show it if it isn't already shown, but if it was open when entering the activity, leave it open).