Download the form
DA Form 3955 exists to change of address and directory card — that is the short version. Title of record: CHANGE OF ADDRESS AND DIRECTORY CARD. The page covers the download, the entries and the disposition, nothing else. Current here: edition 01/01/2015, status ACTIVE, 1 page(s), near 52 fields.
Two references decide everything about your use of it: G-1 maintains the content, AR 600-8-3 sets the trigger and the routing. Consult the directive when your case is not routine; otherwise the printed blocks tell you enough. The person named in the entries fills it, or the administrative office holding the file does it for them.
PDF are available and the decision takes one second. Type your entries: fillable pdf. Write them: printable pdf. The published layout is common to both, so the format governs your method and nothing more.
Use a full pdf reader, not the browser viewer. Browser viewers display fields they cannot always save, and the loss shows up only when you reopen the file — type one entry, save, reopen, verify, then fill the rest.
Free, unregistered, unmodified. What arrives is what the publisher released.
What the form asks for
- Address1
- Address2
- Address3
- BoxNumber
- Boxnumber
- DODInumber
- DateDepartold
- DateDueNewOrg
- Datesigned
- DoDIDNumber
- Family
- Grade
- Individual
- Line1
- Line2
- ListFamembers
- Name
- NewAddress
- NewEmail
- NewOrg
- NewOrgan
- No1
- OLDaddress
- PData
Header first, always. Name as your official records spell it, identification number, unit, date of preparation — these four index the finished record, and an error in them hides the document from anyone searching for it later. The substantive blocks can wait thirty seconds.
Tabbing beats clicking for coverage. The order was set at build time and tracks the page layout, so following it leaves no gaps. Boxes and buttons are clicked; where options are exclusive, one selection cancels another by design. Watch field width on long entries: one-line fields have no wrap, and what runs past the edge disappears in print though the screen still shows it. Move that text to remarks or a continuation. Never leave an inapplicable field empty — enter the nil mark, because a reviewer cannot distinguish a skipped question from a considered answer.
Sign last. An unsigned form is a draft whatever else is on it, and additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — follow printed block order with each signer dating the day they sign, not the day of preparation. Four faults account for most returns: a blank mandatory field, transposed digits in an identification number, day and month reversed in a date, and leftover entries in a working copy reused instead of a fresh blank. Read the form once from the top before releasing it.
Read the Privacy Act statement at the point it appears. Authority, purpose, routine uses, mandatory or voluntary — four facts, and they govern what you are about to enter. A completed copy holds personal data and takes the handling rules that attach to it.
The prescribing directive names the destination; office custom does not. Depending on the case that means a specific office, the unit administrative channel, or the personal record. Keep a copy first, because the original does not come back. Retention runs on the applicable records schedule.
Companion documents come from the same series and number scheme. Within the DA series, a shared proponent or a shared directive usually means shared use, and a form cited on the face of another accompanies it. Gather the whole package first — continuation sheets, cover sheets, transmittals.
Check the edition date before reusing a saved copy. Revisions come from the proponent without notice to you, and the printed date is the only version marker on the page. Already-submitted records under a superseded edition stand as filed; the change does not run backwards.
These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download. The site is independent, connected to nothing official, and issues no forms of its own. Nothing here is legal advice and no statement is made about acceptance by any office. Questions about an entry, a requirement or eligibility go to G-1 or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 3955?
- CHANGE OF ADDRESS AND DIRECTORY CARD
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/2015
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-1
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF