Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 2938. First, know what you are filling: Election of Retirement Coverage for Reemployed Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR) Annuitants. The document is titled Election of Retirement Coverage for Reemployed Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR) Annuitants.
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.
Before you download, pick your approach — editable file or printed page. What follows covers the formats first, then the entries, then what you do afterward.
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.
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 Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
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 14 fields.
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.
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
- Line2
- Page1
- ResetButton1
- StaticText1
- ann_dob
- ann_name
- ann_sign
- description
- form1
- formatTest
- sign_date
- title
- version
- xelect
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 2938 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.
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 2938?
- Election of Retirement Coverage for Reemployed Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR) Annuitants
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?