Check the cover date against AR 25-30's rules: a revision replaces a regulation entirely and gets a new issue date, a rescinded publication number is never reused, and a publication is due for revision or recertification every five years. Then check for an Army Directive on the same subject — a directive overrides the regulation's policy immediately and can run for up to two years before the regulation itself is rewritten to match.
AR 25-30 is the regulation that governs how the Army publishes, revises, rescinds and dates its own publications. It answers the currency question directly, and the answer has two parts: what changed the regulation's own text, and what changed the policy without touching the text at all.
A regulation's own text only changes by revision, which is a complete replacement:
A new edition of a publication; it replaces the previous edition in its entirety. A revision supersedes the previous edition of that publication or the publications that have been consolidated.
AR 25-30, para glossary, Revision
A revision carries a new issue date, and ARs also carry an effective date — the date users must start following the new content:
The effective date is the date that users must start following the policies, procedures, or guidance in the publication. The effective date changes whenever the content of the publication is revised and the issue date changes.
AR 25-30, para 2-4b
A publication can also be withdrawn outright rather than replaced. Once a number is rescinded or superseded, it is retired for good:
The number of a rescinded or superseded DA publication must not be reused.
AR 25-30, para 2-15
Age alone is also a signal. HQDA principal officials — the proponents responsible for a publication — are required to act on it at least every five years:
Revise, rescind, or certify as current all DA administrative publications they are the proponent for every five years at minimum to comply with the SECARMYs five-year currency standard.
AR 25-30, para 1-7a(3)
None of that catches the case that trips people up most: a regulation that looks current on its cover but has had its policy overridden by something that was never meant to replace it. That instrument is the Army Directive, and it is temporary by definition:
A temporary directive or information memorandum the SECARMY issues to establish or change policy or guidance for distribution and applicability Armywide that is effective for 2 years.
AR 25-30, para glossary, Army directive
A directive does not wait for the regulation to catch up. It controls the moment it is signed:
Take precedence over existing Army policy.
AR 25-30, para table 2-1, Army directive (AD)
and the regulation's proponent then has a deadline to fold it in:
When an AD takes precedence over Army policy in existing DA administrative publications, proponents of those publications must revise them within 2 years to incorporate the policy from the AD into the AR.
AR 25-30, para table 2-1, Army directive (AD)
This is not hypothetical. AR 670-1, the Army's uniform and appearance regulation, was last revised 26 January 2021. Eighteen months later, Army Directive 2022-09 changed where tattoos are allowed — on the hands, the back of the neck and behind the ears — without touching AR 670-1's own pages. The directive said plainly what it was doing:
This directive announces a change in policy for the allowable placement of tattoos for currently serving Soldiers and applicants for enlistment or appointment.
ARMY DIR 2022-09, para 2
A reader who checked only AR 670-1's cover date would have found nothing wrong with it — it was, and still is, the current edition — and would have gotten the tattoo policy wrong anyway. An answer built from AR 670-1's text alone, without checking for a directive on the same subject, was exactly that kind of wrong. The directive itself says how long that state of affairs lasts:
This directive is rescinded on publication of the revised regulation.
ARMY DIR 2022-09, para 6
AR 670-1 has not been revised since, which means the directive is still what actually controls tattoo placement, more than four years after the regulation's own cover date and long past the two years AR 25-30 gives to fold a directive back into its AR. In the time since, more directives have changed other parts of the same regulation — grooming, facial hair, chaplain insignia, the recruiting ribbon — without a revision either. A regulation's own cover date says nothing about any of that; only checking for directives does.