Public documents are types of documents that are issued in a prescribed form by the state body within the limits of its jurisdiction and a document that is issued in such form by a legal or natural person in the performance of a public service entrusted to it. By using several definitions, from different legal sources, of the term public document the paper explains which public documents that we use and encounter with every day can be lead under this term. Also, the paper explains why is it important for people to be able to use them in countries different from the country of its issuance. In order for public documents to be used in international legal transactions, they need to go through a legalization procedure and due to increasingly frequent migrations and globalization, it is extremely important to simplify that procedure. There are two ways of legalizing public documents, and each of them is presribed by a different legal source – Act on legalization of documents in international traffic and The Convention of Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. Those two ways are – the procedure of full legalization of documents and legalization of documents with Apostille confirmation. The Apostille certificate is the oldest way of exemption from the legalization of certain public documents, and in the 21st century the e-Apostille certificate was developed in order to follow the modern step with digitalization. Certain legal acts, such as Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 and bilateral agreements concluded between countries, exempt certain public documents from legalization, similar formalities and simplifies other formalities which benefits the citizens. The paper presents the cases that came before the second-instance courts in the Republic of Croatia, concerning the use of different types of public documents issued in other countries in the Republic of Croatia. As well as the problems that citizens and competent authorities face when legalizing public documents. In conclusion, a review of legal sources that regulate this issue is mentioned and whether their reform is necessary or whether they follow the current needs of citizens for the recognition and legalization of public documents.