Start here if you have been told to submit DD Form 551. First, know what you are filling: Record of Interment. The document is titled Record of Interment.
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.
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.
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 A mismatch means you are working from a superseded printing, and because DD forms change Department-wide rather than service by service, the office receiving it will notice.
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
Begin by choosing a file. Available here: none published here. Plan for unknown pages and about unknown entries.
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.
Now that it is complete, send it where not stated or your local procedure says it goes. Before you do, make yourself a copy — scan it or save the file elsewhere. It costs you nothing and saves you the whole exercise if the original goes missing.
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.
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.
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.
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 551?
- Record of Interment
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here