Download the form
Treat DD Form 2718 as Department-level, which changes how you look for it. Title: DD Form 2718, Prisoner Release Order, March 2013. Function: Prisoner Release Order. 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.
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comparison is the first thing worth making, because a DD form supersedes centrally and an old copy in a shared drive is out of date for every office, not just yours.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 17 fields. That is the whole scope of the download decision.
Default to fillable pdf, print only when you must. The fillable file stores what you type; the printable file is a blank picture. A Department form often travels further than a service form — scanned, emailed, forwarded to an agency that never saw the original — and typed text is what survives that.
Skip xfdl unless the viewer is already installed. It is the IBM Lotus Forms format, adopted Department-wide for electronic forms and still present in the set for that reason; ordinary pdf software reports it as unreadable.
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
- 1. Correctional facility/brig officer or designee.
- 2. Installation.
- 3. Date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 4. The prisoner named below will be released from confinement (Date: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 5. Prisoner name (last, first, middle).
- 7. Grade.
- 8. Branch.
- 9. Unit/agency.
- For the Commander: 11. Authenticating officer name (last, first, middle initial).
- 12. Signature.
- 13. Grade, unit/agency, and title.
- Receipt. 15. Date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 16. Time.
- 17. Name, grade, organization and title.
- 18. Signature.
- 10. Reason for release.
- 6. Registration number.
Verify the edition before the first keystroke. The date on the form face should read not stated. If it does not, discard the file. Field numbering shifts between editions, and on a DD form the new layout reaches every receiving office in every service at once — there is no lag during which the old version is still normal somewhere.
Unclear entries — read the form face, then not stated; the directive prevails.
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.
Look up cross-referenced forms by series and number. DD numbering is unified across the Department, which removes the usual step of identifying which service issued the thing.
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.
Three drivers of revision: directive reissue, altered collection requirements, updated statutory notice text. No notification accompanies any of them, so download fresh and confirm not stated rather than reusing an archived file.
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 2718?
- DD Form 2718, Prisoner Release Order, March 2013
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?