Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2656-6 is one of those instruments: DD Form 2656-6, SBP Election Change Certificate, April 2009, created to Survivor Benefit Plan Election Change Certificate. 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.
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.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
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.
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 58 fields.
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
- 3. Date of retirement: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 4. Date of birth: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 5. mailing address: street, apartment number, city, state and zip code.
- 6. Telephone number, include area code.
- Section 2 - Current coverage. 7. My current coverage is: Press space bar to mark X in first box if no coverage, second box if spouse only, third box if child only, fourth box if spouse and child, fifth box if insurable interest, sixth box if former spouse, seventh box if former spouse and child, or eighth box if suspended coverage.
- Section 3 - Conditions that trigger eligibility to change coverage. 8. I am requesting a change in coverage based on: Mark X if marriage.
- Mark X if remarriage.
- If remarriage, X first box if resume existing coverage, second box if increase coverage, third box if not resume coverage, or fourth box if coverage for new spouse if current coverage is for former spouse.
- Mark X if acquiring a dependent child.
- Mark X if divorce.
- Mark X if death of spouse.
- Section 1 - Member Information. 1. Name: last, first, middle initial.
- 2. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- Section 4 - Requested change to coverage. 9. Indicate new coverage election by marking X in first box if resume existing coverage, second box if spouse only, third box if spouse and child(ren), fourth box if child(ren) only, or fifth box if suspend coverage.
- Section 5 - Level of Coverage. 10. Indicate monthly amount coverage will be based on. X first box if full retired pay, second box if reduced amount of retired pay.
- Enter reduced monthly amount of retired pay (cannot be less than $300.00).
- Section 6 - Spouse and children information. 11.a. Spouse's name: last, first, middle initial.
- 11.b. Social security number.
- 11.c. Date of birth: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 12. Date of marriage: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 13. Dependent children. a. Name: last, first, middle initial, line 1 of 6.
- 13.b. Social security number.
- 13. c. Date of birth : 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 13. d. Relationship. Son, daughter, stepson, etc. Indicate "FS" if from previous marriage.
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.
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.
Where a service form is cited in the same instruction, the two numbering systems should not be read across. DA numbering belongs to the Army and is administered by an Army proponent; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or an equivalent Department office. The systems developed separately and were never harmonized, so identical digits in each identify two documents with nothing in common. The prefix, not the number, tells you which system you are in.
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.
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 2656-6?
- DD Form 2656-6, SBP Election Change Certificate, 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?