Military Search

Military Search (QMS) checks whether a person is, or recently was, on active military duty, using the Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) as the source. Lenders, servicers, collectors, law firms, and property managers use it to meet their obligations under two laws:

• SCRA (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act): status as of a date of interest, such as an origination, filing, or sale date. Used before rate decisions, collections, repossession, eviction, foreclosure, and on a recurring cycle across a portfolio.
• MLA (Military Lending Act): whether a borrower is a covered borrower when credit is extended.

Business use only

Military Search is a business-to-business service for organizations with a permissible purpose to verify military status. It is not available to consumers.

Before searching, Military Search cleans each name, splits out aliases such as “AKA” and “FKA” entries, and searches the name variations a person may be recorded under. A missed variation can mean a missed servicemember. See Permutations in the Power user view.

What each search needs

	SCRA	MLA
Required	Last name, plus an SSN or a date of birth	Last name, date of birth, and an SSN or ITIN
Optional	First and middle name, date of interest (defaults to today)	First and middle name
Date limits	Date of interest on or after September 30, 1985, and not in the future	Date of birth not in the future

Key concepts

Concept	What it means
Search (order)	One request for one person. Each search gets a Quandis order ID and can carry your own reference number (client ID).
Name variation (permutation)	An alternative form of the name, such as with or without a middle name or with parts of a compound last name swapped. Each variation is searched separately.
Result	DMDC’s answer for one name variation: whether the person is covered, plus the relevant dates and service component.
Covered	The search-level answer: true if any variation came back covered.
Certificate	DMDC’s status certificate for a result, which you can request with the search and keep as evidence.
Instant vs batch	Instant searches return results in the same request, for one person at a time. Batch orders submit a file of people and return results and certificates when DMDC has processed the file.

Choose your view

Use the buttons under the page title. End user covers reading results and running an order from a record in QBO; Power user covers batch orders, re-checks, and name permutation settings; Developer covers the REST API.

For product capabilities, packages, and use cases by industry, see the Military Search product page. Security and certifications are covered in Security.