Headquartered at the Wisma Bernama, off Jalan Tun Razak near National Library, Kuala Lumpur, it was created by an Act of Parliament in 1967 and began operating on 20 May 1968.

Its key role is to provide and supplying real-time comprehensive and credible news and accurate information for its clients, both public and media practitioners.

[8] He also disclosed that the unnamed news agency of Malaya is expected to be launched by August 1963, a month prior to what would have been the formation of Malaysia.

[9] The then-Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Razak Hussein on 5 August 1965 announced that the Federal Government agreed to set up a news agency as soon as possible,[10] revealing the Bernama name to the public.

The new bill ensure Bernama could provide news content with "credible and accurate, without touching public, national interests and community's views".

[27][28] Bernama was established under the Act of Parliament on 6 April 1967 and launched a day prior to what would have been 10th anniversary of Malaysia's independence, on 30 August 1967 and officiated by the then-Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

[36][37][38] At the time it began operations, Bernama has only 20 staffs with its headquarters located at the four-room bungalow at Jalan Pekeliling, Kuala Lumpur.

[63] In January 1984, Bernama signed an agreement with the German news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) to enter a commercial arrangement for the distribution of the latter's service.

[74] In September 1985, Rais confirmed that the agency will be corporatised into a private entity, pending approval from the Government, citing that it is "being studied",[75] including the review of the Bernama Act.

[89] A day later, Bernama was given sole rights to receive and distribute news in the country and allowed to ventured into business to ensure it is self-financed after the Parliament passed amendments of the act.

[92] The plan for privatisation of Bernama revived in September 1991 when its Editor-in-Chief at that time, Abdul Rahman Sulaiman said that the agency will be undergoing a major restructuring as part of its preparation to transform itself into a private entity.

[96] In March 1992, Bernama launched a personal computer-based technical analysis service on price movements on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (now Bursa Malaysia) which targeted for investors.

[97] The then-Deputy Prime Minister, Ghafar Baba confirmed that the Government will corporatised Bernama by the end of 1993 and will privatised within 3 years while clarified that the move will "help enhance the country's communications facilities".

[103] He also pointed out that the agency "will still have to discharged its social obligations in news coverage" when Bernama become a corporate entity upon its privatisation.

[39] In 2000, former New Straits Times editor-in-chief Abdul Kadir Jasin submitted his proposal to take over Bernama, but later withdrew his decision to acquire the news agency.

[112] In 2002, Bernama launched an Arabic news service as part of its plan to disseminate information to West Asia and several other African countries.

By this time, both signed an MoU on selected news translated in Arabic that would be released by Antara for the Gulf countries.

This time, both the news agencies would partner to produce a documentary with various topics on matters related to both Malaysia and Indonesia.

[119][120] On 10 November 2011, Bernama launched a pictorial book titled Che Det which revolves on the turning point of Mahathir Mohamad's premiership as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia.

[123] In 2018, it was announced that Bernama and Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) would merge to form a standalone public broadcasting corporation as part of the government's efforts to reduce operation costs.

[124] In conjunction with its 53rd anniversary in 2020, Bernama launches two new columns titled Tinta Minda in Malay and Thoughts in English, which consists of commentaries by experts from diverse backgrounds.

[129] Despite there are several attempts to corporatised the agency into a privately held, Bernama remains a government-owned organisation with its obligation to provide comprehensive news and true information to Malaysia and abroad.

[135] While tabling the bill of the news agency's formation which he later approved, Senu Abdul Rahman, former Minister of Information and Broadcasting assured that Bernama will not be "used as a propaganda tool".

[139] Former Information Minister, Ahmad Shabery Cheek expressed his praise to Bernama for its reporting style which is said to be acceptable to all parties including the opposition.

[142] In 2009, Bernama's headquarters in Jalan Tengku Putra Semerak, Kuala Lumpur was broken into by the thieves in an incident took place on 11 March.

[145] On 30 August 2013, Bernama's Terengganu bureau office in Jalan Sultan Sulaiman was robbed after Muslims performed their Friday prayers.

In a 2:45 pm incident, two laptops and a BlackBerry phone was missing, believed to be taken away by a big-sized men based on a CCTV recording.