How to Fill Out and Submit DD Form 2558: Allotment Setup and Processing

DD Form 2558 is the Department of Defense authorization you use to start, stop, or change a military pay allotment, and you can download the current fillable PDF from the Washington Headquarters Services forms page at esd.whs.mil.¹ The form is authorized under 37 U.S.C. § 701 and covers active-duty members of every branch, retirees, and Guard or Reserve members on extended active duty.² Your unit finance or personnel office keeps blank copies too. Use the current edition; an outdated version can cause DFAS to reject your request outright.

Before you sit down with the form, pull together your DoD ID number, the recipient’s full name and address, and the receiving bank’s routing and account numbers. Blank fields are the most common reason DFAS returns a form.

Filling Out the Form

The form is a single page of numbered boxes. Work through them in order.

Your Identifying Information (Boxes 1–6)

Box 1 is your branch of service (Air Force, Marine Corps, Army, or Navy). Box 2 is your full legal name in last-first-middle initial order. Box 3 asks for your DoD ID Number, not your Social Security Number, though older versions of the form used SSN.³ The rest of the block captures your grade, duty station or home address, and contact information.

Action, Amount, and Effective Date (Boxes 7–12)

Box 7 is the effective date in YYYYMM format, which tells DFAS which pay period to apply the change. Box 8 is the monthly dollar amount to be deducted. In Box 10, mark whether you are starting a new allotment, stopping one already running, or changing the amount on an existing allotment. If you are changing an amount, enter only the new figure; you do not cancel and restart.³

Allotment Class (Box 13)

Box 13 is where most people slow down. Mark the letter code that matches the purpose of the allotment:

C — Charity/CFC, for Combined Federal Campaign contributions.
D — Discretionary, the catch-all for dependent support, bank deposits, insurance premiums, rent, mortgage, and home loan repayments.
F — Emergency/Assistance Fund, for charitable contributions to emergency or assistance funds.
L — Service Organization Loan Repayment, for Red Cross or Relief Society loans (Navy and Marine Corps only).
N — NSLI or USGLI insurance premiums.
T — Tax Debt, for delinquent federal, state, or local income or employment taxes.

If none fit, use the “Other” line and write in the purpose.³ Most everyday allotments (a checking or savings deposit, rent, an insurance premium) are class D.

One numerical limit to be aware of: you can carry no more than six discretionary allotments at once, and only one discretionary allotment per recipient.⁴ Non-discretionary allotments (savings bonds, CFC, relief society loans, tax debts, debts to a federal agency) do not count against the six.⁵

Recipient and Banking Details (Boxes 14–20)

Boxes 14 through 16 identify the allottee: the name, address, and phone number of the person or organization receiving the money. Box 17 is the company code or the financial institution’s nine-digit routing transit number. Box 18 is the account number, with a checkbox for checking or savings.³ Verify the routing number against a recent bank statement or your bank’s website. Printed checks can carry outdated numbers, and a wrong routing number sends the payment into limbo.

Signature and Certification (Box 21)

Box 21 is your signature. Above it sits a Statement of Understanding certifying, under penalty of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, that the allotment is not for the purchase, lease, or rental of personal property.³ Only the allotter signs. The form has no provision for a spouse or an agent under a power of attorney.

What You Cannot Set Up With This Form

Since January 1, 2015, DoD policy has prohibited discretionary allotments used to buy, lease, or rent personal property such as cars, furniture, or electronics.⁶ That is the same restriction you certify to in Box 21. If a lender tells you the loan must be repaid by allotment, treat it as a warning sign: requiring allotment repayment for credit covered by the Military Lending Act violates that law, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has flagged workarounds involving lender-created “savings accounts” that sweep out the allotted funds.⁷

Submitting the Form

Where the completed form goes depends on your status.

Active Duty

Most active-duty allotment changes can be done in myPay without submitting the paper form. Log in, select Allotments, and choose Start New Allotment or pick an existing one to change or stop. Follow the prompts, submit, and check your transaction history to confirm.⁸ Electronic Funds Transfer allotments to financial institutions are fully manageable there. Some insurance and charitable allotments can also be changed or stopped in myPay, but starting certain non-EFT allotments still requires the paper DD 2558. When you do need the paper form, take the signed original to your unit finance office or military pay office, which forwards it to DFAS.

Retirees

Retirees have three routes to DFAS. The fastest is the askDFAS online upload tool, which accepts PDFs around the clock; expect about three business days for the upload to enter processing.⁹ You can also mail or fax:

Mail: Defense Finance and Accounting Service, U.S. Military Retired Pay, 8899 E 56th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46249-1200
Fax: 800-469-6559

Put your name and the last four digits of your SSN on every page.¹⁰

Retiring Soon

If you are within 30 days of retirement, review your active-duty myPay account and identify the allotments you want to keep. Not all of them transfer automatically; some have to be re-established under retired pay. DFAS recommends handling this before your retirement date so payments to your allottees don’t lapse.¹⁰

Processing Time and Confirming It Worked

A complete, correctly filled DD 2558 typically processes in about 30 business days.⁹ myPay changes are faster because they skip manual intake, but still have to sync with the next pay cycle.

Once the change takes effect, it appears in the allotments or deductions column of your Leave and Earnings Statement. The Remarks section of the LES specifically notes starts, stops, and changes to allotment fields; check there first if the numbers look off.¹¹ If two full pay periods pass and nothing has changed, contact your finance office or DFAS. Keep a signed copy of the form in your own records as proof of what you requested and when.

1
Washington Headquarters Services. DD 2558 – Authorization to Start, Stop, or Change an Allotment
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 37 USC 701 – Members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps; Contract Surgeons
3
Washington Headquarters Services. DD Form 2558 – Authorization to Start, Stop or Change an Allotment
4
Department of Defense. DoD 7000.14-R Financial Management Regulation Volume 7A, Chapter 42 – Discretionary Allotments
5
Department of Defense. DoD 7000.14-R Financial Management Regulation Volume 7A Chapter 40
6
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Military Allotment Policy Changes
7
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Protecting Servicemembers From Abuses of the Military Allotment System
8
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Allotments
9
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. askDFAS Online Tools for Retirees
10
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Transferring Allotments From Active Duty to Retired Pay
11
Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Leave and Earnings Statement Handout