Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2258 is one of those instruments: D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82., created to Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions. 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.
That decision has consequences you will notice. Because not stated prescribes the form for the Department as a whole, and not stated maintains it on the Department's behalf, the same blank passes between the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Space Force, the Coast Guard when operating under Defense jurisdiction, the defense agencies and the combatant commands without translation. A clerk in one component reads a record created in another and finds the fields where they expect them.
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.
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.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
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 1 pages and asks for approximately 24 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
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.
What the form asks for
- D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82
- Printed name: last, first, middle initial.
- Receptacle number.
- Status: Press space bar to mark X if status is A D V A S G.
- Mark X if status is T D Y.
- Mark X if status is on leave.
- Mark X if status is hospital
- Effective date from which to forward or hold mail: year, month, day.
- Mark X if status is confined.
- Mark X if status is AWOL
- Effective date to which to hold or forward mail: Year, month, day.
- Mark X if all mail is to be forwarded.
- Mark X if all mail is to be held.
- Indicate which items are to be forwarded only: Mark X if letters.
- Mark X if paychecks are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if parcels are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if newspapers and magazines are to be forwarded.
- Mark X if other items are to be forwarded and explain in the Special Instructions block.
- Complete forwarding address.
- Special instructions.
- Signature of receptacle holder.
- Date signed: year, month, day.
- For advance receptacle assignment, list name of sponsor and duty phone in the Special Instructions block.
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
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.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
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.
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 2258?
- D D Form 22 58, Temporary Mail Disposition Instructions, January 19 82.
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?