Legalisation of documents will not be required for countries party to bilateral treaties with Croatia on international legal assistance, specifically:

Austria Belgium * Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Czech Republic France Greece ** Hungary Italy *** Montenegro North Macedonia Poland Romania Russian Federation Serbia Slovak Republic **** Slovenia Turkey *

*Art. 10 of the Treaty on Legal Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters between SFRY and the Kingdom of Belgium, Belgrade, 24 September 1971 provides for dispensation for specific documents, as follows: “Article 10 To be able to use files or documents produced, issued or authenticated by the courts of one of the two countries in judicial affairs on the territory of the other country, they shall require no legalisation or other similar formalities, provided that they bear a court stamp. This shall also apply to files or documents signed by an authorised court official if their signature is sufficient under the law of the country where the court is located." Furthermore, Article 1 of the Convention of 24 September 1971 on the Issuance of Excerpts from Civil Status Records and Dispensation from Legalisation stipulates that the dispensation from further authentication applies to: excerpt from the register of births, certificate of stillbirth, declaration of acknowledgement of paternity or court decision establishing paternity of a child born out of wedlock, excerpt from the register of marriages, excerpt from the register of deaths, documents or decisions on civil status matters: divorce, adoption, legitimation by adoption, etc. ** Article 29 of the Convention between FPRY and the Kingdom of Greece on Mutual Legal Relations, Athens, 18 June 1959 defines the term of a public document more narrowly, as documents produced and issued by "judicial authorities" and "administrative authorities".

**under Article 19, 20 and 21 of the Convention of 3 December 1960 between FPRY and the Italian Republic on mutual legal assistance in civil and administrative matters, only specified documents are exempt from legalisation; "A civil status document within the meaning of Articles 17 and 18 shall mean:

1. document from the birth record;
2. declaration about stillbirth;
3. certificate of adoption of out-of-wedlock children, composed by registrars;
4. document from the marriage record;
5. document from the death record;
6. registration of judgements or decisions on divorce, separation, nullity or annulment of marriage in civil status records;
7. registration of orders, judgements or decisions on civil status in civil status records;
8. single status certificate;
9. declaration made by the competent authorities of a Contracting Party that there are no obstacles to the marriage of a citizen of that Party on the territory of the other Party.