You have arrived looking for DD Form 355. Before you download, confirm this is the right document: Employee Suggestion. Full title: DD Form 355, Employee Suggestion, July 1999.
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.
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.
Now fill it in. Work from the top of the page downward, and do not jump ahead — the identifying block comes first, the substance of your entry second, the certification last. Later boxes often depend on what you put at the top.
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 Old copies circulate in shared drives for years, and a DD form is revised centrally for every service at once, so a superseded blank may not carry the fields your reviewer expects.
Look up an unclear item on the form face before anywhere else, then in not stated. Should the two texts conflict, the directive is the one you follow.
Download the form
Step one is picking the format. You have PDF to choose from, across 3 pages, with approximately 75 fields to complete.
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
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
- 3. Name of suggester (last, first, middle initial).
- 4. Organization. Press space bar to mark X in first box if OSD, second box if WHS, third box if JS, or fourth box if other.
- 4. Specify other.
- 5. Home address. Number and street or R F D number, City, State, Zip Code.
- 6. Organization subdivision. Department, division, section, unit or shop.
- 7. Job title.
- 8. Grade or rank.
- 9. Work telephone number (include area code).
- 10. Do you desire your suggestion to be processed anonymously? X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 11.a. Signature of suggester.
- 11. b. Date signed (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- 12. Processing data. a. Dates of action (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day). (1) Date received.
- (4) Date of initial referral for investigation.
- (3) Date checked.
- b. Decision. X first box if accepted, second box if rejected.
- (2) Date acknowledged.
- b. Date suggester notified.
- d. Date recommended to OSD component head for award.
- (5) Date considered at board meeting.
- e. Evaluation Referral Notes. (1) Referred to, line 1.
- (2) Date forwarded (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- (3) Date returned (4 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day).
- (4) Remarks.
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.
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.
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 355?
- DD Form 355, Employee Suggestion, July 1999
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?