Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 2051 — DD Form 2051, Request for Assignment of a Commercial and Government Entity Code, October 2011 — was established to Request for Assignment of a Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code, 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.
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.
You are looking for edition not stated, listed as not stated. Department-wide supersession is a single event rather than a rollout, which is what distinguishes edition currency on a DD form from the same question on a service publication: nobody anywhere is still accepting the previous version out of habit.
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.
For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 2 pages and about 34 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.
Fillable and printable are not two presentations of one file but two different objects. One holds your entries as structured data within the document; the other is a static picture meant to meet a pen. Since a DD form frequently moves outside the organization that created it, the durability of the entry matters more here than on a record that stays in one drawer. Typed text reproduces indefinitely; handwriting degrades at every copy.
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
- Section A - to be completed by initiator. 1. Requesting government agency/activity. a. Name.
- 1.b. Street address.
- 1.b. City.
- 1.b. State.
- 1.b. Zip code.
- 2. Type code requested. Press space bar to mark first box if type A, second box if type F.
- 3. Exception codes. a. C A O.
- 3.b. A D P.
- 4. Initiator. a. Typed name: last, first, middle initial.
- 4b. Office symbol.
- 4.c. Signature.
- 4.d. Telephone number (include area code).
- Section B - to be completed by firm to be coded. 5. Firm. a. Name (include branch of, division of, etc.)
- 5.b. Street address.
- 5.b. City.
- 5.b. State.
- 5.b. Zip code.
- 5.c. CAGE code (if previously assigned).
- 6. If firm previously operated under other name(s) or other address(es) specify the previous name(s) and/or address(es). Use separate sheet of paper if necessary.
- 7. Parent company and affiliated firms. Mark X in first box if none, second box if currently affiliated with other firms, and third box if previously affiliated with other firms. List names and addresses of such firms on a separate sheet of paper.
- 8. Primary business category. Mark X in first box if manufacturer, second box if dealer/distributor, third box if construction firm, fourth box if service company, fifth box if sales office, and sixth box if other.
- 8.f. If other, specify.
- 9. Small disadvantaged business status. Mark X in first box if approved by Small Business Administration for Section 8a program, second box if other small disadvantaged business concern, third box if not small disadvantaged business concern.
- 10. Number of employees.
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
When DD Form 2051 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.
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 2051?
- DD Form 2051, Request for Assignment of a Commercial and Government Entity Code, October 2011
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?