DD Form 137-3 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 137-3, Dependency Statement - Parent, and it exists to Dependency Statement - Parent ( Instructions ). What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
This is why the arrangement matters to you rather than only to the archivists. not stated governs the form throughout the Department, with not stated as the responsible office, so the record you create is legible outside your own component. Joint assignments, agency details and cross-service transactions all depend on that: the paperwork does not have to be reconstructed each time it crosses a boundary.
The edition in force is not stated, carried by the publisher as not stated, and edition discipline is stricter on a Department form than most people expect, precisely because supersession happens everywhere at once. There is no interval during which one service still works from the previous layout while another has moved on.
The sequence printed on the form is the sequence in which a reviewer will read it, and the two should agree. Header data frames every entry below it; the substantive fields depend on that frame; the certification stands at the end because its whole function is to vouch for what came before. Entries made out of sequence commonly contradict entries made earlier.
Verify the printed edition against not stated first. Field structure shifts between editions, and the office that receives your record is reading the current one. That office may sit outside your service, which removes even the informal accommodation you might expect from a colleague who used the old version last month.
For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 5 pages and about 200 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
The difference between a fillable and a printable pdf is a difference in what the file contains. A fillable release carries an interactive layer: each box is a defined field with a name and a data type, and what you type is stored as data inside the document. A printable release has no such layer — it is an image of the page, and the only place your answers can go is onto paper. The distinction matters downstream, because a Department record often gets scanned and forwarded several times before it reaches its final file, and typed characters survive that chain in a way pen strokes do not.
What the form asks for
- 1.Entitlements Requested. a. Type. Press space bar to mark X if B A H.
- Mark X if U S I P card.
- Mark X if Travel Allowance.
- 1.b. First application? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- If no, give date of last application. Four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- c. Last application was: X first box if approved, second box if disapproved.
- 2.Member information. a. Name (Last, First, Middle Initial).
- 2.b. DoD ID Number.
- 2.c. Rank.
- d. Status. X first box if active duty, second box if retired, third box if national guard, fourth box if reserve.
- X first box if Army, second box if Marine Corps, third box if Navy, fourth box if Air Force.
- Mark X if deceased.
- If deceased: Date of death (Four digit year, two digit month, two digit day).
- X if any other status or service.
- Specify other status.
- 2.e. Complete residence address (Street, apartment number, city, state and zip code).
- 2.f. Complete military address (include assignment, squadron and base).
- 2.g.(1) Work telephone number.
- (2) Home telephone number.
- 2.h. E-mail address.
- 2.i. Marital status. X first box if single, second box if married, third box if separated, fourth box if divorced, or fifth box if widowed.
- 3. Parent(s) information. a. First parent. (1) Name (last, first, middle initial).
- (3) Date of birth. Four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- (4) Relationship.
Submission follows not stated and whatever local instruction supplements it. Make a copy before the original leaves. Department forms travel across organizational lines by design, and the administrative distance that makes them useful is the same distance that makes tracing a lost one difficult.
When DD Form 137-3 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.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
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.
A word on what this page is. It distributes a published Department of Defense document and describes what the document contains and how it is completed. It is not the issuing authority, does not speak for one, and offers no legal advice; nothing written here determines whether a particular submission will be accepted, because that determination belongs entirely to the office receiving it. Questions of applicability, eligibility or procedure go to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 137-3?
- DD Form 137-3, Dependency Statement - Parent
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?