In 2003, Congress enacted the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), formerly known as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Relief Act. This federal law was created to allow active duty service men and women the ability to “devote their entire energy to the defense needs of the Nation.” To that end, relief, protections, and provisions can also apply to spouses and children as well as “as any individual who relied on the servicemember for at least 50 percent of their support, for 180 days prior to using the Act.” The Act covers many items and issues, including credit card interest rates, contracts for mobile phones, eviction prevention, protection against default judgements and the postponement of foreclosures and civil judicial proceedings. To learn more about benefits, click here.

As an investigator, you may be hired to verify military personnel. The SCRA website allows any user to submit a single record request for a certificate verifying Active Duty (AD) status for an individual on a specified date. As enhanced security measures for military personnel, all users are now required (as of June 2019) to create an account for single record and multiple record requests. You will need to provide your first/last name, address, and email address.

SCRA reports on AD status since September 30, 1985 and only reports Title 10 AD periods. AD periods of less than 30 days of length aren’t currently included on the website. It is recommended that you input as much identifying information as available to you in order to improve the search results. For a single record search, a social security number OR date of birth is required with the last name to perform the search. If you don’t enter an AD Status Date, the default date of “today” will be used.

When conducting multiple record requests, there is a limit of 50 requests per 24-hour period; each request file cannot contain more than 250,000 records. If your investigation dictates proof via a certificate, you opt for that during your search and download them as a Zip or PDF file often within 24 hours. It is important to note that result files are only kept on the Website for 10 days, so be sure to check back regularly after the first 24 hours are up to download your results.