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DD Form 256 — a Department of Defense document. Title of record: Honorable Discharge Certificate. Stated purpose: Honorable Discharge Certificate. Edition date not stated; status not stated.
Governing directive: not stated. Responsible office: not stated. The DD designation signals joint scope — all military departments, combatant commands and defense agencies draw on a single edition of the document.
Users include uniformed members of any branch, DoD civilian employees, contractor personnel where authorized, and the administrative staff who process the completed record.
Submission follows the schedule set by not stated and by local implementing procedures. This page provides the blank form for download and general orientation only.
Available formats: none published here. The form runs unknown pages and contains approximately unknown fillable fields.
The xfdl release corresponds to IBM Lotus Forms. This format carried Department-wide form distribution for years and opens only in IBM Lotus Forms Viewer or a compatible client, not in a pdf reader.
Every listed format is free to download. Modern pdf software handles the pdf files, with the caveat that browser-embedded viewers sometimes ignore field properties that a desktop reader honours.
The document is filled from the top down. Identification precedes substance, substance precedes certification. Fields lower on the page are commonly keyed to entries made above them.
Edition in use: not stated. Because DD forms are revised at Department level and distributed to all services at once, an obsolete printing may not match the fields an office expects. The date is printed on the form face.
Signature is manual ink on printed copies and digital where the receiving system accepts it. A typed name in a signature field is a name, not a signature. Common Access Card credentials support digital signature in pdf where the form and the reader permit.
Privacy Act notice: DD forms that collect personal data carry a Privacy Act Statement stating the authority for collection, the principal purpose, routine uses and whether disclosure is voluntary or mandatory. The statement is part of the form and should be read before entry, not after.
Errors seen most often involve edition mismatch, empty mandatory fields, illegibility after scanning, date formats inconsistent with the printed instruction, and unsigned or undated certification.
Guidance for specific entries sits on the form face and in not stated; the directive is authoritative where the two do not agree.
The completed document moves to the office named in not stated or in local guidance. A retained copy is conventional practice.
Related documents are located by series and number. DD forms sit in a single Department-wide sequence, so a form referenced inside DD Form 256 is normally found by its number alone, without regard to service.
A DD number and a DA number may appear in the same instruction without being related. DA forms belong to the Army alone; DD forms belong to the Department and are administered at Department level. The sequences are independent.
Forms are reissued for several reasons: directive revision, changed data requirements, updated notice language. Confirming not stated at the moment of download covers the risk.
This page distributes a published Department of Defense document and describes it. It is not a source of legal advice and makes no representation about acceptance of any completed form. Questions of applicability, eligibility or procedure belong to not stated, the servicing personnel office, or the office named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 256?
- Honorable Discharge Certificate
- 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