Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 2538 — DD Form 2538, Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application, May 1989 — was established to Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application, 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.
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.
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.
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
The set published here is PDF, covering 1 pages with roughly 28 fields. More than one format survives because the Department serves users under very different conditions, from a desk with current software to a location where a printer is the only reliable output.
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.
All of it downloads without charge. Where care is needed is in the reader you choose. A fillable pdf depends on field properties that desktop applications honour and browser previews frequently ignore, so work locally rather than inside a browser window.
What the form asks for
- 5. Employee certification. a. Press space bar to mark X if credit in the current leave year.
- 5. b. Mark X if credit effective the beginning of the next leave year.
- 5. c. Mark X if credit to another leave recipient (complete (1) - (4)).
- 5. c. (3) Mark X if credit all restored leave to recipient designated in 5.c.(1).
- 5. c. (4) Mark X if credit percent to the leave recipient and percent to my leave account designated in 4. a. or b.
- 1. Pay block number.
- 2. Employee identification. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. b. Social security number. Include dashes.
- 2. c. Position title.
- 2. d. Grade/step.
- 2. e. Organization.
- 2. f. Salary.
- 3. Leave data. a. Annual leave balance.
- 3. b. As of (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 3. c. Accrual rate for annual leave.
- 3. d. Hours to be earned during remainder of leave year.
- 3. e. Hours to be donated.
- 3.f. Use or lose hours included in 3. e.
- 4. Designated leave recipient. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 4. b. Organization.
- 5. c. (1) Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 5.c.(2) Organization.
- 5.c.(4) Percentage to leave recipient.
- Percentage to leave account.
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.
Forms referenced inside this one are located by number alone, and that simplicity is a direct product of Department-level numbering. Because the DD sequence is maintained centrally and not duplicated by service, a number is a complete address: one number, one document, throughout the Defense establishment.
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 2538?
- DD Form 2538, Voluntary Leave Transfer Program Leave Donor Application, May 1989
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?