diff --git a/mne/__init__.pyi b/mne/__init__.pyi
index d50b5209346..6560854402e 100644
--- a/mne/__init__.pyi
+++ b/mne/__init__.pyi
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ __all__ = [
     "Evoked",
     "EvokedArray",
     "Forward",
+    "HEDAnnotations",
     "Info",
     "Label",
     "MixedSourceEstimate",
@@ -260,6 +261,7 @@ from ._freesurfer import (
 )
 from .annotations import (
     Annotations,
+    HEDAnnotations,
     annotations_from_events,
     count_annotations,
     events_from_annotations,
diff --git a/mne/annotations.py b/mne/annotations.py
index 629ee7b20cb..09d907637a7 100644
--- a/mne/annotations.py
+++ b/mne/annotations.py
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@
     verbose,
     warn,
 )
+from .utils.check import _soft_import
 
 # For testing windows_like_datetime, we monkeypatch "datetime" in this module.
 # Keep the true datetime object around for _validate_type use.
@@ -151,6 +152,7 @@ class Annotations:
     --------
     mne.annotations_from_events
     mne.events_from_annotations
+    mne.HEDAnnotations
 
     Notes
     -----
@@ -288,7 +290,7 @@ def orig_time(self):
 
     def __eq__(self, other):
         """Compare to another Annotations instance."""
-        if not isinstance(other, Annotations):
+        if not isinstance(other, type(self)):
             return False
         return (
             np.array_equal(self.onset, other.onset)
@@ -567,6 +569,8 @@ def _sort(self):
         self.duration = self.duration[order]
         self.description = self.description[order]
         self.ch_names = self.ch_names[order]
+        if hasattr(self, "hed_strings"):
+            self.hed_strings = self.hed_strings[order]
 
     @verbose
     def crop(
@@ -758,6 +762,163 @@ def rename(self, mapping, verbose=None):
         return self
 
 
+class HEDAnnotations(Annotations):
+    """Annotations object for annotating segments of raw data with HED tags.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    onset : array of float, shape (n_annotations,)
+        The starting time of annotations in seconds after ``orig_time``.
+    duration : array of float, shape (n_annotations,) | float
+        Durations of the annotations in seconds. If a float, all the
+        annotations are given the same duration.
+    description : array of str, shape (n_annotations,) | str
+        Array of strings containing description for each annotation. If a
+        string, all the annotations are given the same description. To reject
+        epochs, use description starting with keyword 'bad'. See example above.
+    hed_strings : array of str, shape (n_annotations,) | str
+        Sequence of strings containing a HED tag (or comma-separated list of HED tags)
+        for each annotation. If a single string is provided, all annotations are
+        assigned the same HED string.
+    hed_version : str
+        The HED schema version against which to validate the HED strings.
+    orig_time : float | str | datetime | tuple of int | None
+        A POSIX Timestamp, datetime or a tuple containing the timestamp as the
+        first element and microseconds as the second element. Determines the
+        starting time of annotation acquisition. If None (default),
+        starting time is determined from beginning of raw data acquisition.
+        In general, ``raw.info['meas_date']`` (or None) can be used for syncing
+        the annotations with raw data if their acquisition is started at the
+        same time. If it is a string, it should conform to the ISO8601 format.
+        More precisely to this '%%Y-%%m-%%d %%H:%%M:%%S.%%f' particular case of
+        the ISO8601 format where the delimiter between date and time is ' '.
+    %(ch_names_annot)s
+
+    See Also
+    --------
+    mne.Annotations
+
+    Notes
+    -----
+
+    .. versionadded:: 1.10
+    """
+
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        onset,
+        duration,
+        description,
+        hed_strings,
+        hed_version="8.3.0",  # TODO @VisLab what is a sensible default here?
+        orig_time=None,
+        ch_names=None,
+    ):
+        self.hed = _soft_import("hed", "validation of HED tags in annotations")
+
+        super().__init__(
+            onset=onset,
+            duration=duration,
+            description=description,
+            orig_time=orig_time,
+            ch_names=ch_names,
+        )
+        self.hed_version = hed_version
+        self._update_hed_strings(hed_strings=hed_strings)
+
+    def _update_hed_strings(self, hed_strings):
+        # NB: must import; calling self.hed.validator.HedValidator doesn't work
+        from hed.validator import HedValidator
+
+        if len(hed_strings) != len(self):
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"Number of HED strings ({len(hed_strings)}) must match the number of "
+                f"annotations ({len(self)})."
+            )
+        # validation of HED strings
+        schema = self.hed.load_schema_version(self.hed_version)
+        validator = HedValidator(schema)
+        error_handler = self.hed.errors.ErrorHandler(check_for_warnings=False)
+        error_strs = [
+            self._validate_one_hed_string(hs, schema, validator, error_handler)
+            for hs in hed_strings
+        ]
+        if any(map(len, error_strs)):
+            raise ValueError(
+                "Some HED strings in your annotations failed to validate:\n  - "
+                + "\n  - ".join(error_strs)
+            )
+        self.hed_strings = hed_strings
+
+    def _validate_one_hed_string(self, hed_string, schema, validator, error_handler):
+        """Validate a user-provided HED string."""
+        hs = self.hed.HedString(hed_string, schema)
+        issues = validator.validate(
+            hs, allow_placeholders=False, error_handler=error_handler
+        )
+        return self.hed.get_printable_issue_string(issues)
+
+    def __eq__(self, other):
+        """Compare to another HEDAnnotations instance."""
+        return (
+            super().__eq__(self, other)
+            and np.array_equal(self.hed_strings, other.hed_strings)
+            and self.hed_version == other.hed_version
+        )
+
+    def __repr__(self):
+        """Show a textual summary of the object."""
+        counter = Counter(self.hed_strings)
+        kinds = ", ".join(["{} ({})".format(*k) for k in sorted(counter.items())])
+        kinds = (": " if len(kinds) > 0 else "") + kinds
+        ch_specific = ", channel-specific" if self._any_ch_names() else ""
+        s = (
+            f"HEDAnnotations | {len(self.onset)} segment"
+            f"{_pl(len(self.onset))}{ch_specific}{kinds}"
+        )
+        return "<" + shorten(s, width=77, placeholder=" ...") + ">"
+
+    def __getitem__(self, key, *, with_ch_names=None):
+        """Propagate indexing and slicing to the underlying numpy structure."""
+        result = super().__getitem__(self, key, with_ch_names=with_ch_names)
+        if isinstance(result, OrderedDict):
+            result["hed_strings"] = self.hed_strings[key]
+        else:
+            key = list(key) if isinstance(key, tuple) else key
+            hed_strings = self.hed_strings[key]
+            return HEDAnnotations(
+                result.onset,
+                result.duration,
+                result.description,
+                hed_strings,
+                hed_version=self.hed_version,
+                orig_time=self.orig_time,
+                ch_names=result.ch_names,
+            )
+
+    def append(self, onset, duration, description, ch_names=None):
+        """TODO."""
+        pass
+
+    def count(self):
+        """TODO. Unlike Annotations.count, keys should be HED tags not descriptions."""
+        pass
+
+    def crop(
+        self, tmin=None, tmax=None, emit_warning=False, use_orig_time=True, verbose=None
+    ):
+        """TODO."""
+        pass
+
+    def delete(self, idx):
+        """TODO."""
+        pass
+
+    def to_data_frame(self, time_format="datetime"):
+        """TODO."""
+        pass
+
+
 class EpochAnnotationsMixin:
     """Mixin class for Annotations in Epochs."""