Start of €4m civil registry digitalisation project

On Friday, 10 July 2026, Minister of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation Damir Habijan participated in the kickoff conference of the project ‘Digitalisation of Civil Status Processes’, which the Ministry is implementing in partnership with APIS IT

The project is worth over 4 million euros, and 85% of the funds are provided from the European Union Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme 2021-2027. The envisaged implementation of the project is 24 months and it will cover the development, testing and system implementation phases.

The main objective of the project is to establish a single civil registry system by merging five existing registers into one according to the principle of ‘one person - one record’. This will increase the efficiency and accessibility of public administration and justice services, improve the quality and interoperability of data, and further reduce the administrative burden on citizens.

Noting that the civil registers are among the country’s most important state registers, Minister Habijan stressed that they record key life events of citizens such as births, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths. 
Croatia already offers four related digital services through the e-Citizens platform: e-Civil Registers, e-Newborn, e-Registration for Marriage and e-Registration for Life Partnership.  This project will develop three new digital services: e-Death Registration, e-Change of Personal Name and e-Restoring the Surname Used Before Marriage or Civil Partnership.

‘The fundamental principle that we keep mentioning is the 'Once Only' principle as well as interoperability. The focus is on our citizens. What they had to go through the counters for before can now be done in one place, from the comfort of their home or office, saving time and money. This is why we are using digitalisation and modern tools, to make their daily lives easier’, said Minister Habijan.

He added that more than 2.3 million people currently use the e-Citizens platform, while the m-Citizens mobile application has around 181,000 users, with further growth expected. He also thanked the registrars and pointed out that the project would further facilitate their daily work.

APIS IT CEO Saša Bilić pointed out that the project will modernise the civil registry system, improve data security and interoperability, and enable the application of state-of-the-art technologies, including AI tools.

The project is a continuation of a long-term process of digital transformation of civil status management and is a follow-up to the previously completed project through the Technical Support Instrument of the European Commission, which analysed the existing systems and defined the future model of development. The aim is to move from the digitalisation of individual records to a fully integrated management of citizens’ civil status data, in line with European best practices in the development of core registers.

In addition to Minister Habijan and APIS IT CEO Saša Bilić, Director General for Implementation of Operational Programmes and Financial Instruments of the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds Sanja Slunjski and Director of the Central Finance and Contracting Agency Dragan Jelić also spoke at the conference.

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