All males who were 16 or older were required to hold a cédula and pay an annual renewal tax under threat of imprisonment.

Shortly after the Trujillo dictatorship ended, a new document named the "Registro Electoral" was created with the intent of organising those who were eligible to vote.

[3] On 15 January 2014, the JCE announced the specifications for a new cédula that would address many of the security concerns raised over the previous card.

[7] As of July 2015, no governmental or private institution in the Dominican Republic accepts the old cédula as a valid form of identification.

The card's front features the national flag as guilloché art and Juan Pablo Duarte's face as microprint reading "República Dominicana."

The bottom right corner features an image of the island in optically variable color-changing inks and a semi-transparent version of the cardholder's photo.

The card's top right corner features a hologram of the JCE logo and the Santiago Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración.

The card's reverse includes a QR code encoding a GUID identifying the cardholder's details in the JCE's database.