Army Regulation 25-30: Army Publishing Program

Army Regulation 25-30 is the Department of the Army’s directive for its publishing program. It sets the rules for how official Army publications and forms are created, staffed, reviewed, authenticated, numbered, distributed, and kept current. Issued on 14 June 2021, AR 25-30 assigns responsibilities up and down the Army’s organizational chain and works alongside DA Pamphlet 25-40, which supplies the step-by-step procedures for carrying its requirements out.

Who Has to Follow AR 25-30

The regulation applies to the Regular Army, the Army National Guard of the United States, and the U.S. Army Reserve.¹ Department of the Army civilians follow it too, especially those working in publishing-related roles such as publications control officers or forms management officers.

Contractors sit in a narrower lane. They must comply with publishing standards when working on Army information products, but they cannot create, change, or rescind DA policy, which the regulation treats as an inherently governmental function. Contractors are also barred from serving as publishing champions, publications control officers, equipment publications control officers, or forms management officers.¹ Those seats belong to military or civilian government personnel.

Types of Publications It Covers

Not every Army document carries the same authority, and AR 25-30 sorts them accordingly. Administrative publications are the largest group:

Army Regulations (ARs) are permanent directives that establish policy, delegate authority, and require uniform compliance across the force.²
DA Pamphlets provide the procedural how-to for a regulation. DA Pam 25-40 is the companion to AR 25-30.
DA Circulars are temporary, expiring within two years of issue or when the triggering event has passed.²
DA Memorandums carry policy or procedural guidance from an HQDA principal official within a single agency or command.
Numbered HQDA Letters are formal correspondence tracked through the publishing program.

Training and doctrinal publications include field manuals, Army doctrine publications, Army techniques publications, and soldier training publications. Technical and equipment publications include technical manuals, modification work orders, and technical bulletins. Each category has its own numbering convention and processing path, but all of them route through the Army Publishing Directorate (APD) for authentication.

How a Publication Gets Authenticated

Every DA publication starts with a formal request. Administrative publications use DA Form 260. Training, doctrinal, technical, and equipment publications use DA Form 260-1.² The proponent’s HQDA principal official, or their deputy, signs the form to confirm the request comes from someone with authority over the content.

The completed package goes to APD through the proponent’s publications control officer. Unclassified submissions travel by email; classified submissions move on the SIPRNet side, with a heads-up on the unclassified side. APD then has seven calendar days to review the package for completeness. Anything missing gets returned to the action officer and publications control officer with guidance on what to fix.² The full path from submission to authentication runs about six months, though complex publications and lengthy coordination push that longer.

Before authentication, a DA administrative policy publication must clear a mandatory legal review by the Office of The Judge Advocate General (OTJAG) and the Office of the General Counsel. APD sends OTJAG a clean draft, a tracked-changes version, the DA Form 260, and all coordination documentation. Security reviews confirm classified publications carry proper markings on every page. Privacy reviews focus on personally identifiable information, particularly reducing collection of Social Security numbers.²

Authentication itself is what turns a draft into an official publication. APD issues a numbered authentication block, and no proponent may publish until APD provides that approval documentation. For selected DA administrative policy publications, the Secretary of the Army is the authenticating authority; the line reads “By Order of the Secretary of the Army,” followed by the Chief of Staff of the Army’s signature block and the Administrative Assistant’s signature and control number.² Authenticated publications cannot contain names of individuals except in the signature blocks on the foreword and authentication pages.

The Five-Year Currency Rule

The Secretary of the Army requires that every DA administrative publication be revised, certified as current, or proposed for rescission within five years of its issue date.² This is arguably the most consequential ongoing obligation in the program because it forces proponents to actively maintain their publications instead of letting outdated guidance sit on the books.

APD tracks compliance through a Five-Year Allocation Plan that assigns each HQDA principal official a minimum number of publishing actions per fiscal year.² Any proposed authentication date must fall within five years of the current issue date. When an office reorganizes or is eliminated, its publications must be transferred to another proponent or rescinded.¹

Rescinding and Replacing a Publication

To rescind a publication, the proponent submits a DA Form 260 through the publications control officer. One catch matters: if the publication prescribes DA forms that are still in use, those forms have to be reassigned to another prescribing publication before rescission can proceed. APD also requests an OTJAG legal review.²

Technical and equipment publications take a parallel path. The rescission request goes through the equipment publications control officer to Army Materiel Command’s Logistics Support Activity, which coordinates with the Army National Guard, Army Reserve, and U.S. Army Security Assistance Command before forwarding to APD.²

When a revised publication replaces an older one, that is a supersession, not a rescission. The title page of the new publication must include a supersession notice identifying the number and date of every superseded or rescinded document, any rescinded forms, and any affected requirement control symbols.

Forms Management

AR 25-30 also governs Army forms. Every DA form must be prescribed by a publication at the appropriate level: a DA form in a DA publication, a command form in a command-level publication. Without that prescribing publication, no form can be approved for electronic distribution, web hosting, or printing.¹

The Army Forms Manager designs all DA forms to federal and DoD standards, approves or disapproves new forms, and periodically reviews existing forms to catch duplicates or obsolete forms. Forms that collect personally identifiable information get extra review under DoD privacy directives. Electronic forms must meet accessibility standards so users on assistive technology can complete and submit them.¹

Command and Installation Publications

Not every Army publication is a DA publication. HQDA principal officials and field commanders issue their own publications to push policies and procedures within their chain of command. Agency, command, and installation publications are authenticated by the agency head or commander, not by the Department of the Army, and DA-level publications control when they conflict.¹

These non-departmental publications include command regulations, circulars, pamphlets, policy memorandums, bulletins, posters, standard operating procedures, and local forms. AR 25-30 sets two clear limits. Command regulations and policy memorandums cannot be used to issue policies that apply outside the command. And multiple-addressee correspondence, policy memos, and SOPs cannot substitute for properly issuing or revising Army policy at the correct level.¹ Unless restricted or classified, these publications must be posted to a public-facing website.

Where to Find Publications and How the Public Can Request Them

The Army’s primary distribution model is electronic. The Army Publishing Directorate site at armypubs.army.mil is the authoritative repository for authenticated publications and forms.³ Agency, command, and installation publications go on a single-source, public-facing website unless they are distribution-restricted or classified.⁴

Classified publications are handled on accredited equipment at the appropriate classification level under AR 380-5. Their titles are kept unclassified to the maximum extent possible so they remain searchable without exposing the content.⁴

If you cannot find a publication through the normal channels, you can request it under the Freedom of Information Act. Your request has to be in writing, describe the document in enough detail to be located, and state that you’re willing to pay applicable fees. For any Army office other than the Corps of Engineers, requests go to the Department of the Army Freedom of Information and Privacy Office in Alexandria, Virginia.⁵ The office has twenty business days from receipt to respond.

Proponent Responsibilities

The proponent, meaning the HQDA principal official who owns a publication, carries the heaviest load. Proponents enforce publishing and forms management policies, sign the DA Form 260, ensure drafts are staffed with the required officials at the O-6 or GS-15 level, and adjudicate every comment received during staffing. If concurrence cannot be reached, the proponent has to resolve nonconcurrences before the publication moves forward.¹

Each HQDA principal official also has to designate three support roles in writing: a publishing champion at the O-6 or GS-15 level, a publications control officer, and a forms management officer. Copies of each designation go to APD. These are the connective tissue between the proponent’s office and APD, and a vacancy in any of them can stall a publishing action indefinitely.¹

Before drafting a new publication, proponents are expected to review existing and related publications so the new document does not conflict with or duplicate what’s already on the books. Proponents may grant exceptions to policies in publications they own, provided those exceptions are consistent with controlling law and higher-level regulations.

1
U.S. Army. Army Regulation 25-30 – Army Publishing Program
2
National Guard Bureau Publications and Forms. DA Pam 25-40 – Army Publishing Program Procedures
3
U.S. Army Picatinny Arsenal. Forms and Pubs
4
U.S. Army. Army Regulation 25-30 – Army Publishing Program
5
Knowledge Core Repository. Freedom of Information Act