You need DD Form 2603, and this page gives you the blank plus the steps for handling it. Start with what the form does: Officer Promotion Rate Comparisons. Its official title is DD Form 2603, Officer Promotion Rate Comparisons, July 1998.
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.
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.
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 A mismatch means you are working from a superseded printing, and because DD forms change Department-wide rather than service by service, the office receiving it will notice.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.
Do not skip past the Privacy Act Statement. It is placed ahead of the personal data fields on purpose: it explains under what authority you are being asked, what happens to the information, and what follows if you decline. Take the minute it costs.
Finish with the certification. Print the form and sign in ink, or apply a digital signature with your CAC if the receiving office accepts one. Do not type your name in the signature box and consider it done; that is a name, not a signature. Date the block immediately after signing.
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.
For questions about a specific entry, check the form's own instructions, and if that does not settle it, open not stated. The directive controls where they differ.
Download the form
First, look at what you can download. The set covers PDF, the form runs 1 pages, and you will complete roughly 64 fields.
Check your software before choosing xfdl. That format belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, long used for Defense form distribution, and it needs the matching viewer. Get the viewer installed, then come back for the file.
Whichever you pick, you pay nothing — every format here is a free download. One last tip: open your pdf in a desktop reader rather than in a browser tab, because browser viewers sometimes drop the interactive fields you need.
What the form asks for
- 1. Service.
- 2. Reporting period. a. From (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 2.b. To (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 3. Promotions. (1) To grade O-8. (a). Acquisition Corps. c. Total screened in zone.
- 3. (1) (a)d. Total number promoted in zone.
- 3. (1) (a)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (i) In zone.
- 3.(1)(a)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (ii) Below zone.
- 3.f. Remarks.
- 3.(1) To grade O-8. (b) Non-acquisition Equivalent/Line Officers. c. Total screened in zone.
- 3. (1) (b)d. Total number promoted in zone.
- 3. (1) (b)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (i) In zone.
- 3.(1)(b)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (ii) Below zone.
- 3.f. Remarks.
- 3.(1) To grade O-8. (c) Total Acquisition and Non-acquisition Equivalent/Line Officers. c. Total screened in zone.
- 3. (1) (c)d. Total number promoted in zone.
- 3. (1) (c)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (i) In zone.
- 3.(1)(c)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (ii) Below zone.
- 3.f. Remarks.
- 3. Promotions. (2) To grade O-7. (a). Acquisition Corps. c. Total screened in zone.
- 3. (2) (a)d. Total number promoted in zone.
- 3. (2) (a)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (i) In zone.
- 3.(2)(a)e. Percent promotion/selection rates. (ii) Below zone.
- 3.f. Remarks.
- 3.(2) To grade O-7. (b) Non-acquisition Equivalent/Line Officers. c. Total screened in zone.
With the form finished, route it to the office named in not stated or in your organization's own instruction. Keep a copy first. People rarely regret having one and frequently regret not having one.
When DD Form 2603 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.
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.
Do not archive this file and reuse it in a year. Forms are reissued as directives are revised, as data requirements shift, and as statutory notice text is amended. Your protection is simple: download fresh each time and confirm the edition date.
Finally, understand the limits of what you have read. This page distributes a published Department of Defense form and describes how to fill it out. It does not give legal or procedural advice, and it cannot promise any outcome for your particular case. For that, contact not stated, your administrative office, or the authority identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2603?
- DD Form 2603, Officer Promotion Rate Comparisons, July 1998
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?