A referendum is the most important and most common form of direct decision making that enables voters to participate directly in carrying out the authority. The paper deals with the referendum in the context of direct democracy in the Republic of Croatia and follows the division into the state, local and advisory referendum, pointing to their advantages and disadvantages, as well as their similarities and differences. Since the independence of the Republic of Croatia until today, three state referendums, several local and one advisory referendum were held. Such a poor referendum practice is the result of very restrictive legislative regulation of the process of proposing and initiation of the referendum by voters, the reluctance of the competent authorities to enable voters to decide directly on certain question and insufficiently thought out and ad hoc amendments to the legislative and constitutional provisions regarding referendum. Within the Croatian legal system, it is therefore necessary to revise the institute of referendum, which must be approached to seriously and with patience, taking into account the opinions of the constitutional experts and the practice of holding the referendum, as well as, in a suitable manner, the practice and legal solutions of other countries with the richer tradition of direct democracy than the Republic of Croatia.