The document is issued by the Serbian Police on behalf of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is the main form of identification on the territory of the Republic of Serbia.

This has caused some controversy, since obviously national identity card will be difficult to use as a valid ID document abroad, except in those countries which also use Cyrillic script.

Validity of the document is ten years (five for minors) from the date of handing in the application, while processing time is up to 15 days.

[2] Serbian identity card does not feature contactless RFID chip, so it is not a fully ICAO9303 compliant biometric travel document.

[3] To acquire the identity card for the first time, a citizen must present a birth certificate and a proof of citizenship.