Development of the modern archival service in Croatia began in the second half of the 20th century. Thereafter, archival service has acquired increasing institutional significance and became established as a compulsory public service on entire territory of contemporary Socialist Republic of Croatia. Establishment of the sovereign Republic of Croatia implied large changes of social and political system and after that archival service also entered new era. It was followed by necessary institutional, legal and organisational changes of entire service, and a role of state archives, especially central function of Croatian State Archives as national archives, has gained on importance. Along with those processes, present status of archival service in Croatia is also significantly affected by global trends of fast development of information and communication technologies and establishment of information society. In this work authors try to analyze four components of archival service: 1. state archives, 2. archival service management, 3. »archives« outside state archives network, and 4. archival records creators and owners. They are analyzed in accordance with archival law, and on the basis of the parameters which are currently in force inside the archival service. Those parameters originate from formal framework of service activities, as well as from more or less precious data collected from particular archival institutions. Basis of future service development, in the context of joining the EU, has been seeing in the more rational organisation (legal framework, network), adoption of common professional standards (technical and intellectual) and rise of the quality of services and provisions in archives (by using new technologies).