The foundations of the archive service and archive legislation were at the same time with the establishment of the Republic of Macedonia. During the period 1945-1971, the federative archive legislation had dominated over the republican archive legislation. The first important by-law was The Law on the state archives from 1951, according to which The State Archives of the People’s Republic of Macedonia and 9 district archives were founded. In 1965 The Law on records and archives was passed, according to which The State Archives were renamed in The Archives of Macedonia, while the district archives became historical archives. With the application of the above-mentioned by-law the following questions are correctly regulated: obligations of the archive owners; jurisdiction of the archives; deposition, purchase and use of the records etc. In 1968 and 1975 two instructions were passed with which considerably was advanced the practice of weeding and inventorying records at the archive owners.
The Law on the archive activity was passed in 1973. By using it, the archive legislation gets a European model. According to the law, A Regulation and An Instruction on records creation and archives administration of the archive owners were passed in 1977.
As a result of the constitutional reforms in Yugoslavia and Macedonia, the archive legislation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia became completely independent and it was fastly developed. At the same time when the Republic of Macedonia became independent, modern archive legislation has being built. The Law on records was passed in 1990 (amended in 1995). The above-mentioned by-law is still in effect.
According to the Law, the following changes have been done: the status of records has been improved; The State Archives of Republic of Macedonia have been transformed into an integrated administrative organization with 9 district departments which have lost the status of a juristic person; singular management, finances and personal policies have been founded; archive supervision service has been formed. The archive owners are under obligation to perform regularly weeding and inventorying of records and in such a state to deposit to the Archives. The general deadlines for deposit of records and their accessibility are 20 years after their creation. With such deadlines the Republic of Macedonia is included amongst the more liberal countries.
According to the Law, a few regulations and instructions have been passed during the period 1996-2005, with which the following questions have been regulated: the records creation and the archive administration of the archive owners; the protection of the records at war and in state of emergency; the prolonged deadlines for access and use of the records; the methodology of the professional work in the organizational units of the Archives etc.
The basic characteristic of the Macedonian archive legislation is that it is a normative system which is worked out. The archive legislation has considerably influenced and is still influencing on the advancement of the archive practice at the archive owners as well as in The State Archives. Nowadays it follows the world tendencies, especially in the field of the international archive standards and the electronic records.