DD Form 2656-1 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2656-1, SBP Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage, April 2009, and it exists to Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
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 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.
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.
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 65 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.
What the form asks for
- Section 1 - Election of Coverage - Retired Members only. 1. Due to divorce, change my SBP coverage to: Press space bar to mark X in first box if former spouse, second box if former spouse and child(ren).
- Section 2 - Retired and retiring members. 2. Are you currently married? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 3. Is this election being made pursuant to the requirements of a court order? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 4. Is this election being made pursuant to a written agreement previously entered into voluntarily as part of or incident to a proceeding of divorce, dissolution or annulment? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 5. If Yes to item 4, was such a voluntary written agreement incorporated in, ratified, or approved by a court order? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 6. Date of birth of former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day
- 7. Date married to former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 8. Date divorced from former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 9. Has former spouse remarried? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 10. If yes, date former spouse remarried: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 10. Dependent Children. a. Name: last, first, middle initial, line 1 of 5.
- 10. b. Date of birth : 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 10.c. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 10. d. Relationship (Son, daughter, etc.).
- 10. e. Disabled? Enter yes or no.
- 10.a. Dependent name, line 2.
- 10.b. Date of birth.
- 10.c. Social security number.
- 10.d. Relationship.
- 10.e. Disabled (yes or no).
- 10.a. Dependent name, line 3.
- 10.b. Date of birth.
- 10.c. Social security number.
- 10.d. Relationship.
The completed form goes to the office named in not stated or in local implementing procedure, and it is worth keeping a copy before it goes. On a Department form the destination is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint staff — and recovering a document that has crossed an organizational boundary is a slower business than retrieving one from a file down the hall.
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.
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 2656-1?
- DD Form 2656-1, SBP Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage, April 2009
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?