You have arrived looking for DD Form 2656-1. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage. Full title: DD Form 2656-1, SBP Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage, April 2009.
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.
Then settle the schedule. You are working under not stated, with not stated responsible for the document, and your organization layers its own deadlines on that. Ask before you assume a date.
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.
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.
Before your first entry, look at the corner of the page and compare the printed date with not stated. If they do not match, stop and download again. Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
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 only after every other entry is complete. Use ink on a printed copy, or a credentialed digital signature — CAC-based, in a reader that handles it — on an electronic one. A typed name satisfies neither method. Enter the date next to it before you close the file.
Review before you submit. Look for a superseded edition, blank mandatory fields, illegible writing, dates in the wrong format, and an unsigned or undated certification.
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
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: PDF. Plan for 2 pages and about 65 entries.
Download the pdf first. After it opens, test a field with your cursor. Fillable means you type, tab to the next box, and save your work inside the file. Printable means the page is a flat blank, so print it and write your answers in 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.
Handle xfdl in two steps. First confirm you have IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or a compatible reader on your machine; ordinary pdf software will report the file as broken. Once the viewer is running, download and fill the form.
All of it downloads free. When you are ready to work, do this: save the file locally, then open it in a full pdf application. Browsers often ignore field properties, and you can lose everything you typed.
What the form asks for
- Section 1 - Election of Coverage - Retired Members only. 1. Due to divorce, change my SBP coverage to: Press space bar to mark X in first box if former spouse, second box if former spouse and child(ren).
- Section 2 - Retired and retiring members. 2. Are you currently married? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 3. Is this election being made pursuant to the requirements of a court order? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 4. Is this election being made pursuant to a written agreement previously entered into voluntarily as part of or incident to a proceeding of divorce, dissolution or annulment? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 5. If Yes to item 4, was such a voluntary written agreement incorporated in, ratified, or approved by a court order? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 6. Date of birth of former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day
- 7. Date married to former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 8. Date divorced from former spouse: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 9. Has former spouse remarried? X first box if no, second box if yes.
- 10. If yes, date former spouse remarried: 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 10. Dependent Children. a. Name: last, first, middle initial, line 1 of 5.
- 10. b. Date of birth : 4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day.
- 10.c. Social security number. Do not include dashes.
- 10. d. Relationship (Son, daughter, etc.).
- 10. e. Disabled? Enter yes or no.
- 10.a. Dependent name, line 2.
- 10.b. Date of birth.
- 10.c. Social security number.
- 10.d. Relationship.
- 10.e. Disabled (yes or no).
- 10.a. Dependent name, line 3.
- 10.b. Date of birth.
- 10.c. Social security number.
- 10.d. Relationship.
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.
If the form points you to another document, you can find it by number alone. DD numbering runs across the whole Department, so you do not need to work out which service issued it — one number, one form, everywhere.
Be careful when a procedure pairs this form with a service form. Read the prefix, not just the digits. Service forms answer to a service proponent, while DD forms answer to not stated or an equivalent Department office, and the two sequences were never aligned. Grabbing the wrong prefix gets you a form that has nothing to do with your task.
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 2656-1?
- DD Form 2656-1, SBP Election Statement for Former Spouse Coverage, 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?