Consider what a Department-level form is for. DD Form 2560 — DD Form 2560, Advance Pay Certification/Authorization, March 1990 — was established to Advance Pay Certification/Authorization, 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.
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.
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.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
The set published here is PDF, covering 2 pages with roughly 42 fields.
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
- Part 1 - Request. 1. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 3. Grade.
- 4. I request: Press space bar to mark X in first box if a. one month advance pay, or second box if b. more than 1 month but less than 3 months basic pay less deductions.
- If b., specify amount.
- 5. I request a repayment schedule of: X first box if a. 12 months or less, or second box if b. 13 - 24 months.
- If a., specify number of months.
- If b., specify number of months.
- 6. I request payment of the advance pay: X first box if a. within 30 days of PCS or 60 days after reporting to my next PDS, second box if b. 31 - 90 days before my PCS, or third box if c. 61 - 180 days after arrival at my PDS.
- 8.a. Amount, line 1.
- Amount, line 2.
- Amount, line 3.
- Amount, line 4.
- Amount, line 5.
- Amount, line 6.
- 9. Total expense amount.
- Part 2 - Certification of Expenses. 7. Expense. a. Line 1.
- 7.b. Expense, line 2.
- 7.c. Expense, line 3.
- 7.d. Expense, line 4.
- 7.e. Expense, line 5.
- 7.f. Expense, line 6.
- 10. Explanation of the circumstances where greater-than-normal expenses might be incurred or circumstances requiring an early or late payment of advance pay.
- Part 3 - Justification for more than 12 months payback. 11. Number of dependents.
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.
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.
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.
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 2560?
- DD Form 2560, Advance Pay Certification/Authorization, March 1990
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?