Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 2481. First, know what you are filling: Request for Recovery of Debt Due the United States by Salary Offset. The document is titled DD Form 2481, Request for Recovery of Debt Due the United States by Salary Offset, April 2006.
Next, check the edition. You want not stated, currently carried as not stated by the publisher. Then confirm the form applies to you — this is a Department of Defense form, so you use it whether you serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force or Coast Guard under Defense jurisdiction.
Once you know the form fits, find out when you file it. not stated sets the requirement, and not stated maintains the form itself. Your own command or agency adds local timing on top of that, so ask your administrative office if the deadline matters to you.
Last in this stage, choose your method: complete it on screen, or print the blank form and fill it out in pen. The sections below take each route step by step.
Start at the header. Complete your identification before anything else, then work through the main entries, then finish at the certification. Skipping around causes contradictions between the top of the form and the bottom.
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 A mismatch means you are working from a superseded printing, and because DD forms change Department-wide rather than service by service, the office receiving it will notice.
Take the fields in order and answer all of them. Mark inapplicable items N/A instead of leaving white space. When you reach a date, copy the format shown on the form, since a reviewer reading a different convention may misread your entry entirely.
When you reach a Privacy Act Statement, read it before you continue. It tells you the legal authority for collecting your information, what the Department does with it, who else may see it, and whether you have to answer at all. That last point is worth knowing before you supply personal identifiers, not after.
Sign last, and sign properly. On paper that means ink in the signature block. Electronically it means a digital signature, usually applied with your Common Access Card in a reader that supports it. Typing your name into the field does not sign anything. Then add the date beside your signature — an unsigned or undated form is the most common reason one comes back.
Run a final pass over the form. The errors that send it back are the same ones every time: old edition, gaps in required fields, unreadable handwriting on a scan, non-conforming dates, no signature or no date.
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
First, look at what you can download. The set covers PDF, the form runs 2 pages, and you will complete roughly 65 fields.
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.
Go with the typed route whenever the choice is yours. Consider what happens after you submit: the copy gets scanned, forwarded and filed, and each pass costs handwriting some legibility. Block letters help if you are stuck with a pen.
What the form asks for
- 1. Paying office identification. a. Name.
- 1. b. Address, include street, city, state and zip code.
- 1.c. Contact name (last, first, middle initial).
- 1.d. E-mail address.
- 1.e. Telephone (DSN and commercial).
- 2. Employee identification. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 2. b. Address (street, city, state and zip code).
- 2. c. Date of birth.
- 2. d. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 3. c. Debt identification number, if any.
- 3. Debt information. a. Reason for debt.
- 3. b. Date right to collect accrued (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 3.d. Original debt amount.
- 3.f. Interest due.
- If no interest due, enter N/A.
- 3.g. Penalty due.
- If no penalty due, enter N/A.
- If no administrative cost, enter N/A.
- 3.h. Administrative cost.
- 3.i. Total collection to be made.
- 3.e. Number of installments, line 1.
- 3.e.(1) At (rate of payment).
- 3.e.(2) Amount.
- 3.e. Number of installments, line 2.
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.
When DD Form 2481 references another form, search on the series and number. Because DD numbers are common to every military department, the number by itself identifies exactly one document.
Watch out for one trap here. If your instructions cite a DA form as well, do not assume the numbers are connected. DA numbering belongs to the Army alone; DD numbering belongs to the Department and is administered by not stated or another Department office. The same number in each system means two unrelated forms, so read the prefix before you download.
Plan to repeat this step whenever the form comes up again. Revisions follow directive changes, changes in what data is collected, and updates to notice language. Since nobody notifies you, check not stated at download and you have covered it.
One thing this page does not do: tell you whether your submission will be accepted. We publish the document and explain how to complete it, and that is where our role ends. Nothing here is legal advice. Take questions about eligibility, applicability or procedure to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2481?
- DD Form 2481, Request for Recovery of Debt Due the United States by Salary Offset, April 2006
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?