clearFocus() on empty editText is not working in Android

Instead of clearing the focus from EditText create an empty view at the top of the layout

<LinearLayout
    android:id="@+id/focusableLayout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:focusable="true"
    android:focusableInTouchMode="true"/>

and declare a utility function to hide the keyboard like this

fun hideKeyboard(activity: Activity) {
    val inputMethodManager = activity.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager 
    inputMethodManager.hideSoftInputFromWindow(activity.currentFocus?.windowToken, 0)
}

Finally when you need to clear focus just call

focusableLayout.requestFocus()
hideKeyboard(currentActivity)

This is happening because your EditText is the first focusable view.

From the docs,

Note: When a View clears focus the framework is trying to give focus to the first focusable View from the top. Hence, if this View is the first from the top that can take focus, then all callbacks related to clearing focus will be invoked after which the framework will give focus to this view.

You can try setting a dummy focusable view above the EditText to clear the focus from it.

In xml, make parent layout

  android:focusable="true"
  android:focusableInTouchMode="true"

and then call clearFocus on edit text and then call parent request focus

 mFragmentBase.editText.clearFocus();
 mFragmentBase.parentLayout.requestFocus();