The Croatian Standards Institute has been established by the Decree on the Establishment of the Croatian Standards Institute (NN 154/2004; NN 44/2005) based on the Law on Standardization (NN 163/2003). It started functioning on 1 July 2005.

The Croatian Standards Institute is an autonomous non-profit public institution established as the national standards body of the Republic of Croatia with a view to accomplishing the following goals of standardization:
- Increasing the safety level of products and processes
- Protecting human health and lives and environmental protection
- Promoting the quality of products, processes and services
- Ensuring the appropriate use of work, materials and energy
- Improving production efficiency
- Controlling variety, ensuring compatibility and interchangeability, and
- Removing technical barriers to international trade.

The Croatian Standards Institute acts as the enquiry point for the World Trade Organization Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO/TBT) and the contact point for Codex Alimentarius.

Organizational units of HZN are as follows: Director General's Office, Standardization Department, Communications Department, Development and New Activities Department, General Administrative Services Department.