The Devanathan and Stachurski diffusion membrane method was used to study the evolution of hydrogen and its permeation into a steel sheet during cathodic charging from a chloride electrolyte or during zinc electroplating. The influence of four different organic compounds, which are the components of various formulations derived to improve zinc electrocoatings, were also tested. At a high-charging current density, the permeation transients obtained in a chloride electrolyte without zinc ions exhibit a maximum attributed to hydrogen trapping in the subsurface layer on the entry side. The concentration of adsorbed hydrogen on the steel surface depends not only on the cathodic current density and the composition of the solution, but also on the influence of the organic additives on the recombination of hydrogen atoms.