The article refers to the changes that have occurred in the legal forms of public administration action used in the process of legalizing public collections. The procedure was shown on the basis of the Act of 15 March 1933 on public collections, and it was pointed out that the only legal form used by public administration authorities was an administrative act. This applied both to the permission to conduct a public collection, the refusal to issue it and also the revocation. It was also emphasized that in the current Act of 14 March 2014 on the principles of conducting public collections, there has been a change in the legalization of this form of social activity. The permit to conduct a public collection has been replaced by a material-technical action, which allows for a more efficient process of registering a public collection.