Introduction The non-governmental organisation Praxis has been providing free legal assistance to persons at risk of statelessness for 12 years. These are primarily the persons whose birth and citizenship have not been registered in civil registry books - legally invisible persons. During this rather long period, there have been significant changes in this area. The attitude of public authorities toward the problem of legally invisible persons has gradually changed. At the beginning they completely denied the existence of the problem; over time they reluctantly recognised that a certain problem existed but still refused to do anything to solve it, and finally, four years ago they took a serious approach and began solving the problem. At that time, the legislative framework was amended to allow a large number of legally invisible persons to exercise their right to registration in birth registry books and to exercise the right to citizenship, which was impossible before these legislative changes. At the same time, and largely owing to the continuous free legal assistance provided for years by the NGO Praxis to persons who are not registered in civil registry books, the number of legally invisible persons has gradually decreased. The latest research conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2015 has shown that 1% of the residents of Roma settlements are not registered in birth registry books, i.e. about 700 people in Roma settlements1. The same research has revealed also that 8% of the children under the age of 4 in Roma settlements are not registered in birth registry books. This information points to the fact that a considerable number of children are still not registered immediately after birth, which means that newborn children are becoming legally invisible persons. Besides, the problem of legal invisibility is still not fully resolved, and a significant number of people are still at risk of statelessness, which is evidenced by the fact that in 2016 Praxis was addressed every month by several dozens of people with more than 50 requests for conducting some of the procedures aimed at registration in civil registry books or the acquisition of citizenship. In the past two years, Praxis published reports analysing the procedures for determining the date and place of birth and exercising the rights to citizenship and residence registration. In these reports Praxis pointed out to specific problems in these procedures and obstacles in exercising the rights to birth registration, citizenship and permanent residence.2 It may be noted that the problems described in the previous reports occurred also in 2016, to a greater or lesser extent. Therefore, this analysis will focus once again on the problems that for years have been hindering access to the aforementioned rights, illustrated with new examples of irregularities observed in the procedures in which Praxis provides legal assistance to its beneficiaries. 1 See: S. Cvejić, Persons at Risk of Statelessness in Serbia – Progress Report 2010-2015, UNHCR, 2016 See: Analysis of Practical Application of the Law on Non-Contentious Procedure - Determining the Date and Place of Birth, Praxis, 2014; Procedures for determining the date and place of birth – a brief analysis of the remaining challenges, Praxis, 2014; The Right to Citizenship in the Republic of Serbia – a brief analysis of the remaining challenges, Praxis, 2014; Registration of Permanent Residence in the Republic of Serbia – a brief analysis of the remaining challenges, Praxis, 2014; Analysis of the Procedures for Determining the Date and Place of Birth and for the Exercise of Rights to Citizenship and Registration of Permanent Residence in 2015, Praxis, 2015 2 1