Queer parents and rainbow families in Croatia exist despite legal restrictions and social barriers. The Life Partnership Act was a major step toward their recognition and protection.

Rainbow families include all families in which children are raised or planned by LGBTIQ people, whether the parents are in a life partnership, an informal partnership, a co-parenting arrangement, or are single parents.

The parental status and responsibility of queer parents toward their children can be regulated through:

• parental care
• partner-guardianship

These institutions still do not ensure full parental rights such as legal parenthood or adoption, but they are an important mechanism for legal and social security for children and their queer parents.

Despite existing barriers, a growing number of LGBTIQ people plan and realize parenthood and build rainbow families through biological, legal, or co-parenting arrangements.

All these families share everyday life like any other family, providing care, love, and responsibility for their children, and they deserve equal legal and social protection.

Many queer parents have children from earlier marriages or relationships with different-sex partners and later raise those children together with their current life partners as part of a rainbow family. Parental responsibility in these families can be arranged through parental care, and in some cases through partner-guardianship under the Life Partnership Act.

There is a legal conflict between the Act on Medically Assisted Reproduction and the Life Partnership Act, which in practice leads to inconsistent interpretation and application of rights.

The Croatian MAR system is generally very restrictive, with many administrative and medical barriers even for women and couples who formally qualify. The law excludes people capable of pregnancy whose legal gender is male from access to MAR procedures.

Because of these restrictions and legal uncertainties, some women choose to access MAR without disclosing that they are in an informal life partnership, plan pregnancy before entering a registered partnership, self-inseminate at home, or more often seek treatment abroad. Trans and gender-diverse people capable of pregnancy often conceal their gender identity to access fertility services.

Under the Family Act, the mother of a child conceived through MAR is defined as the person who gave birth (Article 82), and the donor of reproductive cells has no right to claim parenthood (Article 83).

Parental responsibility for children in such rainbow families can be arranged through partner-guardianship or parental care, depending on the family situation.

Co-parenting means jointly planning and raising a child between two or more people, couples, or individuals who are not in a romantic relationship but decide to have and raise a child together. Examples include parenting arrangements between lesbian and gay couples.

Parental responsibility in such families can be arranged through parental care under the Family Act.

Lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, as well as other people capable of pregnancy, sometimes choose privately or informally organized insemination with a known or unknown sperm donor, without involving the public health system in Croatia or abroad.

Parental responsibility for a child conceived this way can be regulated through partner-guardianship and/or parental care.

Croatia’s Family Act allows adoption by individuals, so LGBTIQ people who are not married or in a life partnership may adopt a child as single parents.

In practice, the adoption system in Croatia is slow, inconsistent, and filled with administrative obstacles, even for applicants who meet all legal criteria.

Foster care in Croatia refers to temporary family-based care for children who cannot live with their legal parents or guardians.

LGBTIQ people in Croatia can become foster parents, individually or as couples, if they meet the general requirements under the Foster Care Act. After the

After the 2020 Constitutional Court’s decision, life partners can participate in the foster care system on an equal basis.

Because the Foster Care Act has not yet been harmonized with that decision, some social welfare centers may still deny this right. In such cases, an administrative complaint or lawsuit can be filed to protect the right and ensure implementation of the Constitutional Court ruling.

If a child’s foreign birth certificate does not show the same last name as the mother who gave birth to the child (for example, the child carries both mothers’ last names), the Croatian registry office may refuse to register the birth.

In doing so, the Republic of Croatia de facto creates a situation of statelessness for the child until the birth is registered and citizenship is recognized through the mother who gave birth.

If the registry office refuses the registration, an appeal must be submitted within the legal deadline against the decision denying the child’s registration, after which the appropriate registration should be obtained through an administrative procedure (and very likely later through an administrative dispute).

If you need legal advice or representation, contact us.

Surrogacy is not legally permitted in Croatia. However, some queer parents or individuals choose surrogacy in countries where it is legal and later seek recognition of parenthood in Croatia.

Surrogacy involves legal risks for the child because Croatian law does not clearly regulate the recognition of parenthood or the legal status of a child born through surrogacy. This can lead to legal and social insecurity, difficulties in obtaining Croatian citizenship, and even a risk of statelessness. The risk arises because Croatian law does not recognize parenthood without a legally defined mother and does not allow the registration of two parents of the same sex.

Statelessness limits access to basic human rights, public services, and state protection.

In most EU member states, surrogacy is not legally regulated, while in some it is a criminal offense, whether commercial or altruistic. Only a few countries permit certain forms of altruistic surrogacy.

Zagreb Pride discourages couples and individuals from using surrogacy as a method of parenthood, even in countries where it is legal. We suggest taking into consideration the complex ethical dimensions of surrogacy and the possible legal and status-related consequences for children. Zagreb Pride does not provide legal or other support or counseling in cases of surrogacy.

International adoption is possible only in exceptional circumstances and is governed by strict international and domestic regulations.

Croatia is a signatory to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, which recognizes adoptions carried out in other countries if they comply with the Convention’s provisions. The Convention is based on the principles of the best interests of the child, prevention of trafficking and commercialization of adoption, and mandatory cooperation between states to ensure lawful, transparent, and ethical procedures.

In Croatia, adoptions from countries that are not parties to the Hague Convention are recognized only after a diplomatic verification of the foreign court decision’s authenticity and under mandatory supervision of the child’s adaptation within the family, in line with the Act on the Amendment to the Act on Private International Law.

In practice, queer parents from Croatia rarely have access to international adoption because most countries do not allow adoption by same-sex couples or by citizens of states that lack full marriage equality.

Zagreb Pride opposes adoptions from countries that are not parties to the Hague Convention and condemns any adoption process that violates its principles.

Adoption must serve solely as a measure of child protection for children without adequate parental care. It must exclude any financial transaction, private mediation, or child trade, and must respect the global balance of power among states and societies, remaining free of colonial practices toward the countries and peoples of the Global South.