A total of 5,100 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 7 p.m.
A little over 3.140 million registered voters are electing the new make-up of 140 municipal and city councils and the assembly of the Brcko district.
Representatives of domestic authorities and international organisations have urged citizens to go to the polls in the highest number possible.
A record number of political parties, 84, are running in the elections, with more than 30,000 people on candidates' lists.
The voting and the counting of the ballots is being monitored by nearly 1,400 domestic and foreign observers. The European Union Delegation to Bosnia has accredited 33 and the U.S. Embassy 27 observers.
The results will be an important indicator of the electorate and impact the solving of the government crisis on the state level and in the Croat-Bosniak Federation entity.
I expect the elections to provide new room for political consensus and help us come out of the political dead end we have been in since May, the international community's High Representative to Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, said before the polls opened.