Download the form
Treat DD Form 2538 as Department-level, which changes how you look for it. Title: DD Form 2538, Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application, May 1989. Function: Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application. Because the number carries DD rather than a service prefix, the same edition covers all military departments and the defense agencies at once. Nobody issues a Navy copy or an Air Force copy.
Requirement traces to not stated; the form belongs to not stated. Everything about schedule sits below that in local instruction, which is where to ask if a date matters.
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comparison is the first thing worth making, because a DD form supersedes centrally and an old copy in a shared drive is out of date for every office, not just yours.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 28 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.
Xfdl needs IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or a compatible client — a pdf reader will not open it. The format was the Defense standard for electronic forms across the Department for years, which is why it persists in DD distribution long after most users moved to pdf.
All formats are free. One operational note: save the file locally and open it in a desktop reader. Browser-embedded viewers drop field properties and lose typed data without warning.
What the form asks for
- 5. Employee certification. a. Press space bar to mark X if credit in the current leave year.
- 5. b. Mark X if credit effective the beginning of the next leave year.
- 5. c. Mark X if credit to another leave recipient (complete (1) - (4)).
- 5. c. (3) Mark X if credit all restored leave to recipient designated in 5.c.(1).
- 5. c. (4) Mark X if credit percent to the leave recipient and percent to my leave account designated in 4. a. or b.
- 1. Pay block number.
- 2. Employee identification. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. b. Social security number. Include dashes.
- 2. c. Position title.
- 2. d. Grade/step.
- 2. e. Organization.
- 2. f. Salary.
- 3. Leave data. a. Annual leave balance.
- 3. b. As of (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 3. c. Accrual rate for annual leave.
- 3. d. Hours to be earned during remainder of leave year.
- 3. e. Hours to be donated.
- 3.f. Use or lose hours included in 3. e.
- 4. Designated leave recipient. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 4. b. Organization.
- 5. c. (1) Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 5.c.(2) Organization.
- 5.c.(4) Percentage to leave recipient.
- Percentage to leave account.
Edition check comes first, ahead of any entry. Compare the printed date to not stated and replace anything older. Department-level supersession is simultaneous across the services, so a superseded blank is not merely out of date locally; the office receiving it is already working from the new field structure whichever branch it belongs to.
Field-level questions go to the printed instructions, then to not stated, which is authoritative.
Submit to the office named in not stated or in local instruction; retain a duplicate before it leaves. Joint routing often sends a DD form across organizational boundaries, and tracing one afterward is not a same-day matter.
Related forms are found by number alone. The DD sequence is one unified Department-wide series, so a cited number resolves to exactly one document with no branch qualifier needed.
Prefix before number. A DA citation and a DD citation in the same instruction point at separate systems — one Army, administered by an Army proponent, one Department-wide under not stated — and there is no correspondence between them at any number.
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.
What is here is the blank form and a description of it. What is not here is legal guidance or any assurance about a particular filing — this page is not the issuing authority and does not speak for one. Those questions go to not stated, to your servicing administrative office, or to the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2538?
- DD Form 2538, Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application, May 1989
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?