DD Form 2789 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2789, Waiver/Remission of Indebtedness Application, 20140917 draft, and it exists to Waiver/Remission of Indebtedness Application. 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.
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a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.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.
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.
Leave nothing empty. Where an item genuinely does not apply, N/A is the correct entry, because the record must distinguish between a question that was answered in the negative and a question that was never reached. An empty box carries no information about which happened. Date fields deserve particular care on a Department form, since the reviewer may write dates by a convention different from yours; use the format the form itself specifies.
The Privacy Act Statement is not boilerplate appended for legal cover; it is the mechanism by which a statutory obligation is discharged at the moment of collection. When the government asks an individual for personal information, it must state the authority under which it asks, the principal purpose, the routine uses to which the data may be put, and whether answering is voluntary or mandatory. Those four disclosures are placed ahead of the data fields deliberately, because the point of telling you is to inform a choice you have not yet made.
The signature converts entries into an attestation, and that is why its form is prescribed. Ink, or a digital signature carrying a credential that identifies the signer — commonly issued on a Common Access Card. Typed characters in the box satisfy neither standard, because the whole value of a signature lies in being difficult to produce on someone else's behalf. Date it as you sign; an undated attestation cannot be placed in the sequence of events.
Every item on the standing defect list undermines the record in the same way — it leaves a question the file cannot answer later. Obsolete edition, empty mandatory boxes, illegible scanned handwriting, non-conforming dates, missing signature or date. 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 6 pages with roughly 82 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.
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
- 1. Type of claim (REQUIRED). Press space bar to mark X in first box if waiver, second box if remission.
- 3. Rank/Grade (REQUIRED).
- 4. Social Security Number (REQUIRED).
- 5. Agency/Service (REQUIRED). X only one box: first if Army, second if Navy, third if Air Force, fourth if Marine Corps, fifth if Other.
- Specify other agency or service.
- 6. Status (REQUIRED). X first box if active, second box if guard/reserve, third box if retired, fourth box if separated, fifth box if DoD civilian, or fifth box if annuitant.
- 6. If active, enter end of enlistment period date: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day, no separators.
- 6. If guard or reserve, enter end of enlistment period date.
- If retired, enter date of retirement.
- If separated, enter separation date.
- If civilian, enter Service Computation Date.
- 7. Current complete mailing address (REQUIRED). Street, City, State, Zip Code.
- 8. Place of assignment or employment.
- 9.b. Home telephone. Include area code.
- 9.c. E-mail address (REQUIRED).
- 10. Type of debt or pay and allowance erroneously paid.
- 11. Gross debt amount (REQUIRED).
- 12. State the date and how you first became aware of debt or erroneous payment (REQUIRED). Attach notification, if available.
- 13. If you were aware of debt or erroneous payment, explain the actions you took to correct the situation (REQUIRED).
- 14. Reason for requesting waiver or remission and why you feel it should be approved (REQUIRED). Financial hardship applies only to remission and if claimed, a financial statement must be attached.
- 15. For annuitants, provide name, SSN and date deceased of military member/sponsor (REQUIRED).
- 16. Attach copies of all pertinent documents (REQUIRED), such as Request for B A H, Statement of Service, Separation Worksheet, DD Form 214, Travel Voucher, Notification of Personnel Action. If not available, explain.
- 17. (REQUIRED). a. If military or civilian, did you receive leave and earnings statement(s)? Mark one box: first if yes, second if no.
- b. If military or civilian, did you request them on EMSS/MYPAY? Mark one box: first if yes, second if no.
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.
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 2789?
- DD Form 2789, Waiver/Remission of Indebtedness Application, 20140917 draft
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?