 <p>First of all don't add the validator (or anything else for that matter) into vendor namespaces. Instead put it somewhere within your application code. Don't know how your app is structured, but lets say <code>./module/YourModule/src/YourModule/Validator/ZendValidatePesel</code>.</p> <p>Then reference your validator class with a full, qualified name, so following my guess it'd be something like:</p> <pre><code>'validators' =&gt; array( array( 'name' =&gt; 'YourModule\Validator\ZendValidatePesel', 'options' =&gt; array( // ... ), ), </code></pre> <p>As far as I know that will directly instantiate the validator for you. Not-so-fun-fact: even if you'd register your validator there under the same name as the fqcn, it won't go through the <code>ValidatorPluginManager</code> -- something that I hope will be, or already is fixed in the framework (if it is somebody let me know, because it'd love to have validators with dependencies at last).</p>