An effort was made to study the characteristics of zinc coatings obtained from free-cyanide alkaline bath and a newly phosphate passivation coatings treatment has been studied. Impedance and polarization tests performed on phosphate + based passivation on electroplated mild steel resulted in an exponential increase in the corrosion resistance of the mild steel sample. Morphological studies from SEM analysis presented nodular arrangement of zinc particles and lamellar arrangement of phosphate particles that were stressed out confirming a low increase in the micro hardness value of the coated sample. XRD analysis revealed the amorphous nature of coating material and indicating the presence of phosphate ions in the coating. The results of these measurements showed that the newly developed phosphate conversion coating is a promising candidate for replacing the conventional hexavalent chromate treatments used at present. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd.