Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 2261. First, know what you are filling: Registered Mail - Balance and Inventory. The document is titled DD Form 2261, Registered Mail - Balance and Inventory, May 2000..
Then look at the edition date: not stated, publisher status not stated. After that, ask whether the form covers your situation. It almost certainly does regardless of your branch — DD forms run Department-wide rather than through a single service.
After that, turn to timing. The requirement comes from not stated; the form is maintained by not stated. Local implementing instructions fill in the dates, so check with the office that will receive your copy.
Finally, decide how you will complete it. You can type into a fillable file or print a blank and write by hand, and the rest of this page walks you through both paths in order.
Begin at the top and move down. Enter your identifying data first, then the body of the form, then the signature block. The sequence is printed in that order because entries below frequently follow from entries above.
Your first action is verification. Find the edition date on the form and match it against not stated. A mismatch means you are working from a superseded printing, and because DD forms change Department-wide rather than service by service, the office receiving it will notice.
If a particular field puzzles you, read the instructions printed on the form first, then go to not stated. When the two disagree, follow the directive.
Download the form
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 2 pages and about 158 entries.
Take the pdf if you are unsure. Then check which kind you have: if the boxes highlight when you click them, you have a fillable pdf and can type straight into it, and your entries save with the file. If nothing highlights, you have a printable pdf — send it to a printer and use black ink.
Type when you can. Printed entries stay legible after the form is scanned, copied and forwarded, and handwriting often does not survive that trip. If you must write by hand, use block capitals and press firmly.
What the form asks for
- Physical inventory, block 2.
- Physical inventory, block 3.
- Physical inventory, block 4.
- Physical inventory, block 5.
- Physical inventory, block 6.
- Physical inventory, block 7.
- Physical inventory, block 8.
- Physical inventory, block 9.
- Physical inventory, block 10.
- Physical inventory, block 11.
- Physical inventory, block 12.
- Physical inventory, block 13.
- Physical inventory, block 14.
- Physical inventory, block 15.
- Physical inventory, block 16.
- Physical inventory, block 17.
- Physical inventory, block 18.
- Physical inventory, block 19.
- Part 2. Remarks.
- Preparing Activity.
- Period covered (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day). From.
- Period covered: To.
- Part 1. Number of Items Processed. Section A. On hand, accepted, received, and prepared for dispatch. 1. Items on hand at start of period.
- 2. Items accepted on PS Form 3806 and 3877 and returned from UMC on PS Form 3883.
Submit the completed form through the channel not stated or your local guidance specifies. Save a copy for yourself before it leaves your hands, whether that means a scan, a photograph or a duplicate file.
Should you need a related form, look it up by its number. The DD sequence is Department-wide, which makes your search simple: no service qualifier, no branch-specific variant to track down.
Here is where people go wrong. They see a number in an instruction and download whichever form matches it. But DA and DD are separate systems — Army-specific in one case, Department-wide under not stated in the other — so check which series you were sent to before you take the file.
Come back and check the edition next time you need this form. Editions change when the prescribing directive is reissued, when the information collected changes, or when the required notice language is updated, and none of those events reaches you directly. Verifying not stated at the moment you download is the whole defence.
Before you go, note what is not covered here. You have the blank form and instructions for completing it; you do not have legal guidance, and no statement on this page determines what any office will do with your submission. Direct those questions to not stated, to the personnel office that serves you, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2261?
- DD Form 2261, Registered Mail - Balance and Inventory, May 2000.
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?