Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 1252-1 is one of those instruments: DD Form 1252-1, US CBP Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part II, February 2006, created to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part II. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
That decision has consequences you will notice. Because not stated prescribes the form for the Department as a whole, and not stated maintains it on the Department's behalf, the same blank passes between the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Space Force, the Coast Guard when operating under Defense jurisdiction, the defense agencies and the combatant commands without translation. A clerk in one component reads a record created in another and finds the fields where they expect them.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
The form is laid out top to bottom in a sequence that reflects how the record will be read, not merely how it was drawn. Identification comes first because everything below it is understood in relation to a named person, unit or transaction; substantive entries follow; certification closes the document because certification attests to what precedes it. Filling out of order tends to produce internal inconsistencies — an entry that made sense before the header was settled and does not afterward.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
Leave nothing empty. Where an item genuinely does not apply, N/A is the correct entry, because the record must distinguish between a question that was answered in the negative and a question that was never reached. An empty box carries no information about which happened. Date fields deserve particular care on a Department form, since the reviewer may write dates by a convention different from yours; use the format the form itself specifies.
The Privacy Act Statement is not boilerplate appended for legal cover; it is the mechanism by which a statutory obligation is discharged at the moment of collection. When the government asks an individual for personal information, it must state the authority under which it asks, the principal purpose, the routine uses to which the data may be put, and whether answering is voluntary or mandatory. Those four disclosures are placed ahead of the data fields deliberately, because the point of telling you is to inform a choice you have not yet made.
What the signature block asks for is an act, not a text. Ink on a printed copy performs that act; a digital signature bound to your credential performs it electronically, CAC-based in most Defense systems. Typing your name performs nothing, since anyone with the file could type the same characters. Enter the date at the same moment: the certification is a statement about a point in time and needs one recorded.
Recurring defects have a pattern to them, and it is mostly the pattern of a record that cannot be relied on: an edition that does not match, gaps that cannot be interpreted, entries that cannot be read after scanning, dates that could mean two things, and a certification nobody executed. For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
The set published here is PDF, covering 2 pages with roughly 79 fields.
If you find an xfdl file here, its presence is historical. The format belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, which the Department adopted Department-wide for electronic forms and fielded on a scale that makes wholesale removal slow. You need the matching viewer to open it; ordinary pdf software cannot read the format and will say so unhelpfully.
Every format is free, as published government documents are. A note on tools, though — the interactive field layer that makes a fillable pdf useful is precisely the part browser viewers handle least reliably. Save the file, open it in a full pdf reader, and the fields behave as the form's designer intended.
What the form asks for
- Customs declaration number.
- Part 1 - Household goods, unaccompanied baggage, and privately owned vehicles. 1. To: (overseas POE/APOE).
- 2. From (military customs inspector).
- Section A - Owner's customs declaration. 1. Name (last, first, middle initial, print or type).
- 4. Grade.
- 5. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 6. Unit address overseas (include A P O number).
- 7. Address in U.S. (include zip code).
- Press space bar to mark X in first box if have or second box if have not been serving overseas under U.S. government orders.
- Am traveling under orders for (or to): X first box if TDY or PCS to US or enroute, second box if PCS to US from overseas, third box if PCS from overseas to restricted overseas area, fourth box if PCS to US from permanent duty station, fifth box if PCS from combat area or zone to the US, or sixth box if TDY to US from overseas.
- Place of exit from the United States.
- 9. Declaration concerning importation of firearms or ammunition previously taken out of the United States. My present address is:
- Date of exit (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 12. Description of firearms or ammunition. a. Firearms. Code, item (1).
- Manufacturer.
- Country of manufacture.
- Caliber size or gauge.
- Model.
- Serial number.
- 12.a. Firearms. Code, item (2).
- Manufacturer.
- Country of manufacture.
- Caliber size or gauge.
- Model.
The completed form goes to the office named in not stated or in local implementing procedure, and it is worth keeping a copy before it goes. On a Department form the destination is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint staff — and recovering a document that has crossed an organizational boundary is a slower business than retrieving one from a file down the hall.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
Procedures that touch both Department and service processes will cite forms from both sequences, and the coincidence of numbers between them is exactly that — coincidence. An Army proponent maintains the DA series for the Army; not stated or another Department office maintains the DD series for the whole Department. Two independent registries, two independent numbering runs, no correspondence at any value.
Understanding why editions change explains why checking them is not optional. Revision follows directive reissue, changes in what data is required, and amendments to mandatory notice text — decisions made at Department level and communicated through publication rather than notification. The file you saved does not update itself, so the edition date at download is what you rely on.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1252-1?
- DD Form 1252-1, US CBP Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part II, February 2006
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?