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DD Form 1588 is a Department of Defense form, not a service form: DD Form 1588, Record of Travel Payments, January 1967, used to Record of Travel Payments. The DD prefix is the operative fact. It means one blank serves every military department — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, Coast Guard under Defense jurisdiction — plus the defense agencies and combatant commands. No branch variant exists.
Authority: not stated prescribes it, not stated maintains it. Those two names settle most disputes about why the form is being asked for. Local commands add timing on top; the requirement itself comes from above them.
Edition not stated, status not stated. That comparison is the first thing worth making, because a DD form supersedes centrally and an old copy in a shared drive is out of date for every office, not just yours.
Available: PDF, across 1 pages, roughly 95 fields. That is the whole scope of the download decision.
Fillable pdf is the default choice. Its boxes hold typed entries inside the document; the printable release is a static image of the same page with no interactive layer. Since DD forms routinely cross between services and agencies before they are filed, typed entries matter more here than on a form that stays inside one office.
Free download, every format. Do not fill the form in a browser tab — browser pdf viewers handle interactive fields inconsistently and discard entries on close.
What the form asks for
- Address or addressograph impression.
- 1. Previous record microfilmed (Air Force only). Date.
- Station.
- Roll reference.
- 2. Special orders. Paragraph and number, line 1.
- Date.
- Issuing headquarters.
- 3. Dates of travel.
- 4. Vouchers. Amount.
- Voucher number.
- Month and year.
- D.S.S. number.
- 5. Description of travel and other remarks.
- 2. Special orders. Paragraph and number, line 2.
- Date.
- Issuing headquarters.
- 3. Dates of travel.
- 4. Vouchers. Amount.
- Voucher number.
- Month and year.
- D.S.S. number.
- 5. Description of travel and other remarks.
- 2. Special orders. Paragraph and number, line 3.
- Date.
Start by matching the printed date to not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared folders for years. Because the Department reissues to all services in one action, nobody is still accepting the previous layout by local custom.
Work the printed sequence: header, body, signature block. The order is functional rather than decorative, since entries below frequently key to identifying data above them.
Complete every field, N/A where an item does not apply, dates exactly as the form prescribes. A DD form crosses service lines, and a convention obvious in one branch is not obvious in the next.
Privacy Act Statement first, personal entries second. It names the authority for the collection, what the data is for, who else routinely sees it, and whether you have to answer at all.
Signature comes after everything else and must be a signature: pen, or a credentialed digital signature via Common Access Card. Typing does not qualify. Add the date at the same moment.
Final pass, against the standing defect list: superseded edition, empty mandatory fields, handwriting illegible after scanning, non-conforming dates, missing signature or date. For anything ambiguous in a specific field, the form's own instructions come first and not stated controls where the two differ.
Route it where not stated or local procedure directs, and keep a copy first. On a Department form the receiving office is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint command — which makes recovering a lost original slower than it would be internally.
A number is a complete address in the DD series. Because the sequence is Department-level and not duplicated per service, there is nothing further to specify.
Do not read across from a service number. DA numbering is Army-specific under an Army proponent; DD numbering is Department-wide under not stated or an equivalent Department office. The sequences are unrelated, so identical digits in each identify two different documents. Read the prefix, not the digits.
Revision follows directive changes, changed data requirements and amended notice language, unannounced. Verify not stated each time rather than trusting a saved copy — the cost of the check is seconds.
This page publishes a Defense document and explains its contents. It does not advise, does not rule on applicability, and determines nothing about how a completed form will be treated. Direct such questions to not stated, to the servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1588?
- DD Form 1588, Record of Travel Payments, January 1967
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?