The North Dakota military affidavit

How North Dakota handles it

North Dakota publishes no military affidavit, and that is the first thing a filer here needs to know. The Court System states the obligation as part of what the plaintiff must prove inside the motion itself. Its debt collection self-help page says the plaintiff must establish that "the Defendant isn't an active military service member," and that "the Plaintiff must attempt to find out if the Defendant is an active duty service member and include the steps they took and the outcome in their Motion for Default Judgment documents." The conclusion alone will not carry it. The steps go in the papers.

Rule 55 of the North Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure does not carry the requirement in its operative text. The explanatory note does: "The operation of this rule is also directly affected by the Servicemember's Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 3901, et seq. Section 3931 imposes specific requirements that must be fulfilled before a default judgment can be ordered or entered. If a default judgment is entered against a person in military service without compliance with the requirements of § 3931, the judgment may be vacated." Read at ndcourts.gov on August 15, 2026.

Use the word declaration, not affidavit. Rule 55 was amended effective March 1, 2021 specifically "to delete the term affidavit and replace it with declaration," in response to N.D.C.C. ch. 31-15, which lets anyone make an unsworn declaration with the same effect as a sworn one. The Self Help Center's Declaration form, revised January 2024, is that statutory skeleton with a caption block, a first sentence naming the declarant, numbered paragraphs of fact, and the signature and location lines. It is deliberately not fillable: the instructions tell you to print it and hand-write, or to copy the caption and signature sections into a word processor and format your own document around them.

The bond is the pressure point when status is unclear. The Court System's page says that if the judge cannot tell from the plaintiff's documents whether the defendant is in active military service, the judge may require the plaintiff to file a bond before granting default, in an amount the judge decides, and that if the defendant later turns out to be serving, the bond is used to compensate the defendant for loss or damage resulting from the default judgment. Rule 55(a)(4) carries a second and separate bond rule for cases served by published notice or by delivery outside the state, with an exception for actions involving title to real estate and for mortgage and lien foreclosures.

The clock: the defendant has 21 days from the day after service to answer the summons and complaint. If nothing comes back, the plaintiff moves for default. Once the motion is filed, the defendant gets 14 or 17 calendar days to serve and file a written Answer to Motion for Default Judgment. Rule 55(a) also requires that a party who has appeared personally or through a representative be served with the motion, with notice complying with N.D.R.Ct. 3.2(a).

What trips filers up here

• There is no North Dakota military form to download. The military facts are drafted into the Motion for Default Judgment and supported by a Declaration, which means the quality of the filing is entirely on the drafter.
• The Legal Self Help Center prints a disclaimer on its own forms: they "aren't official court forms and courts aren't required to accept them," and there is "no guarantee that all judges and courts will accept forms available through the Center."
• Filers who copy an out-of-state affidavit with a notary block are working against a 2021 rule change that deliberately took the word affidavit out of Rule 55.
• The self-help instructions tell you to review the North Dakota court rules to check whether any rule that applies to your case still requires a notarized document, because the March 2018 change is a general rule with exceptions rather than a blanket repeal.

Signing it: declaration, no notary

N.D.C.C. § 31-15-05 prints the required wording: "I declare, under penalty of perjury under the law of North Dakota, that the foregoing is true and correct," followed by the day, month, year, and the city or other location, state, and country of signing. Notarization stopped being the general rule on March 1, 2018 under N.D.R.Civ.P. 11(a)(2). The Self Help Center posts a separate Affidavit form for the cases where a specific rule still demands a notarial officer.

No notary is needed. The signature block is an unsworn declaration under penalty of perjury, which is what 50 U.S.C. § 3931(b)(4) expressly allows. Signing it knowing the military statement is false is still a federal crime, and a state perjury exposure on top.

Getting the military-status answer right

The affidavit is only as good as the search behind it. The Defense Manpower Data Center runs the free lookup that courts and creditors rely on, and since 2026 it requires a free account even for a single record. Our guide to the DMDC SCRA website covers the search itself, what a "no information found" result does and does not prove, and the batch route for high-volume filers. The federal rules behind this form, including what happens when you genuinely cannot determine status, sit on the hub page.

If one was filed against you

A false affidavit is not a technicality. In May 2026 the Justice Department settled with a Florida property manager that swore a Navy sailor was not on active duty, took a default eviction judgment, and left him with an eviction on his record that a dozen landlords then refused to rent around: $60,000 to one servicemember plus a civil penalty . If a default judgment was entered against you while you were serving, it can be reopened; the default-judgment shield walks the deadlines.

Serving in North Dakota and looking for what the state adds to your own protections rather than court procedure? That is a different page: North Dakota SCRA benefits.