Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 1252 — DD Form 1252, US CBP Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part I, February 2006 — was established to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part I, and it was placed in the DD sequence because the underlying transaction occurs throughout the Defense establishment in substantially the same shape. Standardizing the record was cheaper and more reliable than letting six services each design their own.
The practical effect of Department-level issue is interoperability. not stated establishes the requirement across the Defense enterprise; not stated keeps the document current for all of it. No service maintains its own variant, which means a completed record travels between components — service to agency, agency to joint command — and arrives in a format the receiving office already knows how to read.
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a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
Work down the page in the printed order, and understand why the order exists. The identifying block establishes whose record this is and under what circumstances it arises. The body of the form then answers questions that are only meaningful once that context is fixed. The signature block comes last because a certification signed before the entries are complete certifies nothing.
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.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 1 pages and about 23 fields.
Nothing here is charged for. Published Defense forms are public documents and distribution carries no fee, in any format. One caution about software: fill the form in a desktop pdf application rather than a browser tab. Browser-embedded viewers implement field behaviour inconsistently, and the failure mode is silent loss of everything you entered.
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).
- 8. Declaration for: Press space bar to mark X if Household Goods.
- 8. Mark X if Unaccompanied Baggage.
- 8. Mark X if privately owned vehicle.
- Number of members of family.
- Amount of alcohol beverages.
- Number of cigars.
- (7) I have been serving overseas under competent US Government orders and was: Press space bar to mark X in first box if assigned to permanent duty overseas, second box if required to perform temporary duty overseas for 140 days or more, third box if assigned to temporary duty overseas under orders, fourth box if directed from one overseas duty station to another, fifth box if directed to evacuate to the United States, or sixth box if directed to ship personal property in advance of travel orders.
- 10.a. Signature of owner.
- 10.b. Date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 11. Remarks.
- 12. For use of U.S. CBP officers.
- 13. Name of carrier.
- 14. Voyage or flight number.
- Copy designation. X appropriate box: 1 - Attach to manifest, 2 - Place in envelope affixed to No. 1 cargo container, 3 - Origin transportation office file, or 4 - Owner.
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
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.
When DD Form 1252 cites another form, the citation is self-sufficient. The DD series is a single sequence administered at Department level, so the number resolves to exactly one document without any need to establish which component issued it — a convenience that exists only because the sequence was never allowed to fork.
Where a service form is cited in the same instruction, the two numbering systems should not be read across. DA numbering belongs to the Army and is administered by an Army proponent; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or an equivalent Department office. The systems developed separately and were never harmonized, so identical digits in each identify two documents with nothing in common. The prefix, not the number, tells you which system you are in.
A form is downstream of the policy that requires it, and revision usually starts there: a directive is reissued, a collection requirement is altered, notice language is updated by statute. The form is republished as a consequence. Since none of that reaches individual users, an archived copy quietly becomes wrong, and verifying not stated each time you download is the whole remedy.
The role of this page is narrow and worth stating plainly. It makes a published Defense form available and explains its structure. It does not advise, does not interpret policy for your circumstances, and cannot indicate how any office will treat a completed copy — those judgments rest with the authorities that own the process. Direct such questions to not stated, to the administrative office that services you, or to the authority named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1252?
- DD Form 1252, US CBP Declaration for Personal Property Shipments - Part I, 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?