Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2086-2 is one of those instruments: DD Form 2086-2, FOI Consultation and Request Summary, July 08, created to Freedom of Information (FOI) Consultation and Request Summary. 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.
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.
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.
Fill all of it, marking inapplicable items N/A. A record with gaps cannot later demonstrate whether the gap was a decision or an oversight, which is exactly the ambiguity documentation exists to remove. Dates go in the form's own format — on a document that crosses service lines, an ambiguous date is a real hazard rather than a pedantic one.
Understand what the Privacy Act Statement is doing on the page. It exists because collecting personal data from an individual triggers a duty to explain the collection: under what authority, for what purpose, to whom the information may routinely go, and whether you are obliged to answer. That explanation precedes the fields for the obvious reason — afterwards it is merely a notice, beforehand it is a basis for deciding.
The signature converts entries into an attestation, and that is why its form is prescribed. Ink, or a digital signature carrying a credential that identifies the signer — commonly issued on a Common Access Card. Typed characters in the box satisfy neither standard, because the whole value of a signature lies in being difficult to produce on someone else's behalf. Date it as you sign; an undated attestation cannot be placed in the sequence of events.
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
What you can download: PDF. The form runs 4 pages and asks for approximately 96 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
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.
Xfdl appears in the set for reasons of institutional inertia rather than preference. It is the IBM Lotus Forms format, once the Department's electronic forms standard and deployed widely enough that it outlived the decision to move on. IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or an equivalent client opens it; a pdf application will not.
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
- 2. Type of action. Press space bar to mark X in first box if request, second box if appeal, third box if consultation.
- 3. Request category. X first box if commercial, second box if news media, third box if scientific/educational, or fourth box if other.
- 4. Action office.
- 5. Open date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no dividers).
- 6. Close date (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 7. Multi-track processing. X first box if simple, second box if complex, third box if request granted expedited processing.
- 8. Expedited processing and fee waiver adjudication. X first box if granted expedited processing, second box if denied.
- Days required to adjudicate expedited processing request.Number of calendar days required to adjudicate expedited processing request.
- X first box if granted fee waiver, second box if denied.
- Number of working days required to adjudicate fee waiver request.
- 9. Response time in day increments. X first box if 1-20 days, second box if 21-40 days, third box if 41-60 days, fourth box if 61-80 days, fifth box if 81-100 days, sixth box if 101-120 days, seventh box if 121-140 days, eighth box if 141-160 days, ninth box if 161-180 days, tenth box if 181-200 days, eleventh box if 201-300 days, twelfth box if 301-400 days, or thirteenth box if 401 or more days.
- 10. Actions taken. a. Disposition. X first box if full grant, second box if partial grant/denial, or third box if full denial based on exemption(s).
- b. Full denial based on reasons other than exemptions. X if no records.
- X if records referred.
- X if request withdrawn.
- X if fee related reason.
- X if records not reasonably described.
- X if improper request for other reasons.
- X if not agency records.
- X if duplicate request or appeal.
- X if request in litigation.
- X if other.
- X if appeal based solely on denial of request for expedited processing.
- If other, explain.
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 2086-2 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.
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.
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 2086-2?
- DD Form 2086-2, FOI Consultation and Request Summary, July 08
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?