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DD Form 2790 is a Department of Defense form, not a service form: DD Form 2790, Custodianship Certificate to Support Claim on Behalf of Minor Children of Deceased Members of the Armed Forces, 20150302 draft, used to Custodianship Certificate to Support Claim on Behalf of Minor Children of Deceased Members of the Armed Forces. 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comparison is the first thing worth making, because a DD form supersedes centrally and an old copy in a shared drive is out of date for every office, not just yours.
Formats: PDF. Length 2 pages, approximately 37 entries.
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. Member's name: Last, First, Middle.
- 2. Member's social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 3. Child or children in custody. a. Full name: last, first, middle, line 1of 6.
- 3.b. Child's social security number, line 1.
- 3.c. Date of birth (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no separators), line 1.
- 3.d. Relationship to member, line 1.
- 3.a. Child's name, line 2.
- 3.b. Social security number, line 2.
- 3.c. Date of birth, line 2.
- 3.d. Relationship to member, line 2.
- 3.a. Child's name, line 3.
- 3.b. Social security number, line 3.
- 3.c. Date of birth, line 3.
- 3.a. Child's name, line 4.
- 3.b. Social security number, line 4.
- 3.c. Date of birth, line 4.
- 3.d. Relationship to member, line 3.
- 3.a. Child's name, line 5.
- 3.b. Social security number, line 5.
- 3.c. Date of birth, line 5.
- 3.d. Relationship to member, line 5.
- 3.a. Child's name, line 6.
- 3.b. Social Security number, line 6.
- 3.c. Date of birth, line 6.
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.
Unclear entries — read the form face, then not stated; the directive prevails.
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.
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.
Editions change when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the data collected changes, or when notice language is amended. None of that reaches you. Checking not stated at download is the entire defence, and it is cheaper than repeating a submission.
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 2790?
- DD Form 2790, Custodianship Certificate to Support Claim on Behalf of Minor Children of Deceased Members of the Armed Forces, 20150302 draft
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?