The season featured twelve clubs and ran from 2 May to 10 October, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.
Geelong also won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 15–3 win–loss record.
Fitzroy's Haydn Bunton Sr. won the Brownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and Carlton's Harry Vallence won the leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.
Once the 18-round home-and-away season had finished, the 1931 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.
The league predominantly used variations of the Argus Challenge System over the previous thirty seasons.