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AAP-56
NATO and national military staff who draft, sign and file military correspondence, not suppliers or contractors
AAP-56 sets NATO's format for military correspondence - heading, body, close, numbering and abbreviations - agreed by nations under STANAG 2630, not a requirement placed on a supplier.
AAP-56 is NATO's Allied Administrative Publication on military correspondence. It is a house-style guide for how a letter, memorandum or other item of military correspondence is laid out, addressed and closed, not a technical or quality requirement anyone outside NATO's own correspondence-writing chain implements. Any piece of correspondence divides into three parts - head, body and close - and the publication works through what each must show.
The document is written for "the originator of the correspondence" and "the office preparing the correspondence" - whichever NATO or national military staff element drafts, signs and issues the letter. That is an internal administrative audience, not a supplier, manufacturer or contractor: the word "supplier" never appears in the text, and no contract mechanism is defined anywhere in it. It binds through STANAG 2630: "The agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 2630." A nation ratifies the STANAG and then implements it through its own national and command instructions, not through a customer contract. The edition in front of you, Edition A, Version 1, was promulgated in March 2018 and "is effective upon receipt", with no earlier edition it supersedes.
A letterhead "must always include, subject to security considerations" the preparing office's name and address, a point of contact's name, rank, email and phone, a date written day-month-year, an identifying reference, a subject line and an addressee - the exact arrangement is optional as long as each item is "readily identifiable". In the body, paragraphs are numbered once there are two or more, sub-paragraphs run through a fixed sequence of letters, numbers and bracketed levels, and correspondence may be divided into lettered or numbered Parts or Sections while the paragraph numbering runs on unbroken. The close must always carry a signature block - a handwritten signature with the signer's name and rank - and, where the signatory is not the authority named in the heading, a line such as "for", "by delegation" or "by direction".
A single-page letter, and the first page of a multi-page one, goes unnumbered; later pages carry Arabic numerals, with annex pages always numbered from "A - 1" and appendix pages numbered similarly. Arial or Times New Roman "are preferred but may be determined by command or national practice", at 10 to 12 point. Hyphens are used "sparingly" - an uneven right margin is preferred to a hyphenated word, and a word is never hyphenated at the end of a page - and margins follow national or command instructions, with AAP-32 named directly for both Letter and A4 layouts.
Annexes "amplify or explain the parent document", lettered consecutively from A; appendices do the same for an annex, numbered from 1 within each. Enclosures are complete documents forwarded with the correspondence, and every supplementary document is listed and identified in the head or the close. Table rows carry a serial number and columns are lettered, so an amendment can point to a precise cell. A reference to another letter names its office of origin, identifying reference, subject and date; a document extract is identified "by the original chapter, article and paragraph numbers, as appropriate, but never by page numbers", which stay valid even where a translation or reprint changes the pagination.
These "are not normally used in military correspondence covered by this agreement if it is to be circulated between Allied Forces." Where one is used, the words are written in full on first appearance with the abbreviation or acronym following in parentheses; AAP-15, NATO's own glossary of abbreviations, governs which ones are already established. Common international abbreviations such as mm, ft and kg are not precluded.
Nobody assesses correspondence against AAP-56 through a certification, an audit or a contractual conformity scheme - the document names none. Security classification "must be affixed in accordance with the regulations of the office preparing the correspondence", and anything the publication does not cover is "optional for the originator of the correspondence". Correctness here is a matter of an originating office, and ultimately a command or nation, following its own instructions and this format - not a third party checking against it.
AAP-56 places no requirement on a supplier, so there is no meaningful mapping between it and ComplyTrain's product - it is a house style for how NATO and national military staff format their own correspondence, not a requirement a company's quality management system holds evidence against. Where it becomes relevant to a defence supplier is indirect and occasional: correspondence with a NATO or national customer under a contract may need to follow this format, and ComplyTrain can hold that as a documented procedure - a correspondence-formatting instruction, alongside a record of who was trained to use it - the same way it holds any other internally adopted convention.
What ComplyTrain does not do: it does not draft or check military correspondence against AAP-56's layout rules, and it makes no claim that a supplier is assessed against this publication, because the document describes no such assessment for anyone outside NATO's own administrative chain. Which correspondence conventions, if any, a specific contract expects are set by the contract and the customer, not by this page. The standards explorer shows what else sits alongside AAP-56 in the catalogue, and we are glad to talk through what a specific contract requires.
Tell us how you need to work with AAP-56 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
No. AAP-56 governs how NATO and national military staff format and address their own correspondence; it names no supplier, contractor or product requirement anywhere in the text. A supplier's obligations come from the specific contract, tender or Allied Publication that actually applies to their work, not from this formatting guide.
STANAG 2630 is the covering agreement. As NATO's Letter of Promulgation states, "The agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 2630." AAP-56 is the Allied Publication that STANAG 2630 covers, and a nation is bound to use it once that nation has ratified the STANAG.
No, it works alongside them. Large parts of the publication, from punctuation and capitalisation to margins and further sub-paragraphing, are explicitly left to "national or command instructions" or "national or command practice", with AAP-56 setting the shared structure around those choices.
AAP-56 sets the format for military correspondence itself - letters, memoranda and their annexes. AAP-32 is a separate publication governing the format of NATO's own standardization documents (STANAGs, STANRECs and Allied Publications); AAP-56 names it only for margin guidance on Letter and A4 layouts, not as a general reference.
No. The document describes no accreditation, audit or certification scheme. Correctness is self-administered: an originating office follows its own or its nation's instructions and this format, with no external body checking the result.
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