 <p>@Luksprog answer is correct but not working for me. After some experimentation, I found out that removing the android namespace from editTextStyle made it work for me.</p> <pre><code>&lt;style name="App_Theme" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo"&gt; &lt;item name="editTextStyle"&gt;@style/App_EditTextStyle&lt;/item&gt; &lt;/style&gt; </code></pre> <p>and make your custom style to extend <code>Widget.EditText</code> or if using the AppCompat theme <code>Widget.AppCompat.EditText</code>:</p> <pre><code>&lt;style name="App_EditTextStyle" parent="@android:style/Widget.EditText"&gt; &lt;item name="android:background"&gt;@drawable/filled_roundededges_box_dark&lt;/item&gt; &lt;item name="android:textColor"&gt;#808080&lt;/item&gt; &lt;item name="android:layout_height"&gt;45dip&lt;/item&gt; &lt;/style&gt; </code></pre>