Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 1540 is one of those instruments: DD Form 1540, Registration for Scientific and Technical Information Services, November 2007, created to Scientific and Technical Information Services, Registration for. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
The set published here is PDF, covering 2 pages with roughly 65 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
- Section 1 - General Information. (All applicants must complete Section 1.) 1. Organization name.
- 2. Suborganization name.
- 3.a. Classified or Business mailing address.
- 4. Attention. a. Name: last, first, middle initial.
- 4.c. Position/title.
- 4.d. Office symbol.
- 6. Fax numbers (include area code). a. Commercial.
- 6.b. D S N.
- 7. E-mail address.
- 8.a. Prime contract number (or other appropriate number) (contractors only).
- 9. Current or former DTIC user? Press space bar to mark X in first box if yes, second box if no.
- If yes, enter DTIC user code.
- 10. Militarily Critical Technical Data Agreement Certification Number (contractors only).
- 8.b. Expiration date - four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- 11. CAGE code.
- 12. DUNS number.
- 13. Type of access requested. a. Unclassified. X first box if Unclassified/Unlimited (public release) or second box if Unclassified/Limited (controlled distribution).
- b. Classified: X first box if confidential, second box if secret.
- c. Special accesses: X if Restricted Data.
- X if CNWDI.
- 10.b. Expiration date - four digit year, two digit month, two digit day.
- X if NATO confidential.
- X if NATO unclassified.
- X if NATO secret.
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 1540 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.
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.
Editions change for reasons that originate above the form itself. The prescribing directive is reissued and the form follows; the information the Department needs to collect changes and the fields change with it; the statutory notice language is amended and every form carrying that notice is republished. None of these events announces itself to the person who downloaded a copy last year, which is why confirming not stated at the moment of download is the only reliable check available to you.
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 1540?
- DD Form 1540, Registration for Scientific and Technical Information Services, November 2007
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?