diff --git a/esphome/components/api/proto.h b/esphome/components/api/proto.h
index a5fd5c67b2..936e732af1 100644
--- a/esphome/components/api/proto.h
+++ b/esphome/components/api/proto.h
@@ -132,6 +132,9 @@ class ProtoVarInt {
   uint64_t value_;
 };
 
+// Forward declaration for decode_to_message and encode_to_writer
+class ProtoMessage;
+
 class ProtoLengthDelimited {
  public:
   explicit ProtoLengthDelimited(const uint8_t *value, size_t length) : value_(value), length_(length) {}
@@ -189,9 +192,6 @@ class Proto64Bit {
   const uint64_t value_;
 };
 
-// Forward declaration needed for method declaration
-class ProtoMessage;
-
 class ProtoWriteBuffer {
  public:
   ProtoWriteBuffer(std::vector<uint8_t> *buffer) : buffer_(buffer) {}