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DD Form 551 is a Department of Defense form, not a service form: Record of Interment, used to Record of Interment. 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.
Current edition is not stated, carried as not stated. Check that against any copy you already hold before doing anything else — Department-level revisions land everywhere simultaneously, so a stale file is stale across the whole Department.
Formats: none published here. Length unknown pages, approximately unknown entries. Pick on the basis of how you will complete it.
Take the fillable pdf unless you have a reason not to. Fillable means the boxes are real fields that accept typed text and retain it in the file. Printable means a flat blank — no fields, printer and pen only. The difference is not cosmetic: one produces a record that reproduces cleanly through scanning and forwarding, the other depends on penmanship.
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.
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.
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 Department-level supersession is simultaneous across the services, so a superseded blank is not merely out of date locally; the office receiving it is already working from the new field structure whichever branch it belongs to.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.
Where a procedure cites both a service form and a DD form, the two are unconnected. Service numbering answers to a service proponent, DD numbering to not stated or another Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Matching numbers mean nothing whatever.
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 551?
- Record of Interment
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here