Social services include measures, activities and programs that serve to identify and solve a problem or difficulty of an individual or family or to prevent it completely and to improve the quality of life of an individual or family. One of the social services is marriage coun-seling, which is discussed in more detail in the paper. This paper includes definitions of social services in Croatia and the European Union, types, and providers of social services in Croatia, and their prices and financing. The processes of transformation of the social welfare system in Croatia - decentralization, deinstitutionalization and privatization and the role of the European Union in this process are discussed in more detail. Non-profit organizations as providers of social services at the level of the European Union and family policy services in Croatia and the European Union are also mentioned as an introduction to marriage counseling. Marriage/partnership counseling is one of the services, and it serves to help spouses or partners with difficulties in the relationship to resolve them and thus contribute to the quality of their relationship. This paper introduces us to the provid-ers of marriage / partnership counseling in Croatia in family centers as primary providers of this service within the state government, then to Caritas as a provider of marriage / partnership counseling within the non-profit sector and to professionals who provide this service as an independent activity. At the end of the paper, the legal framework related to the provision of marital / partner counseling services and marital / partner counseling services in the European Union was discussed.