From 1918 to 1991, with one minor break (1941-1945), Croatia was a part of different unions with Serbia (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). These unions differed significantly according to their legal and state model, as well as political structures, Croatia and Serbia being the largest and most significant within them. Croatia was considered to have a legal and political status equal to the other subjects (federal republics) in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. They shared legislatures and positive legal directives regulated by the federal government, which passed mutual laws for all the republics. However, every republic could, while obeying those, legislate archives within their own territory. When the union was broken, Croatia and Serbia began to pass archive-regulating laws separately, namely the new Croatian Zakon o arhivskom gradivu i arhivima (Law on Archival Material and Archives, published in Narodne novine 61/18, 98/19), and Serbian Zakon o arhivskoj građi i arhivskoj delatnosti (Law on Archival Material and Archival Activity, published in Službeni glasnik 6/20), both of which were recently enforced. As a both a collective memory and a part of cultural heritage, archives should be publicly available to all citizens. The purpose of this research is to analyze and compare the laws which regulate the availability of archival materials in Croatia and Serbia. The objective is to determine how available the archival materials are in the aforementioned states by analyzing their legislation. The research methods used were content analysis and the comparative method. Content analysis is a research method used to build a systematic experiential record of symbolic communication as one of the most important aspects of social life. (Halmi, A. 1996, p 275). The method of content analysis, which includes purposefully selected samples, was used to analyze the laws governing the availability of archival material in Croatia. Comparing the phenomena makes similarities, common features and differences noticeable. The comparative method was used to differentiate the laws regulating the availability and conditions of use of archival materials: Zakon o arhivskom gradivu i arhivima (Law on Archival Material and Archives) in Croatia, and Zakon o arhivskoj građi i arhivskoj delatnosti (Law on Archival Material and Archival Activity) in Serbia. The purpose of this process was to determine potential similarities and/or differences in the availability of archival materials of the aforementioned countries.