The club was founded on 1 August 1903, in the Boavista area of the western part of the city of Porto, by two English brothers, Harry and Dick Lowe.

[4] The team boasted "the best defensive trio of the North": goalkeeper Casoto and defenders Lúzia and Óscar Vasques de Carvalho.

[4] In the following decade, the club lobbied for the legalisation of professionalism after being sanctioned, having been investigated after complaining that FC Porto had paid Boavista's Nova to join them.

[5] The team bounced back to the top flight by 1970 with two consecutive promotions, finished renovation of its stadium two years later and in 1974 hired manager José Maria Pedroto and president Valentim Loureiro.

In their first year, Boavista achieved their best classification of fourth in the 1974-1975 championship, and won the Taça de Portugal for the first time after defeating Benfica 2–1 in the final.

Experienced English manager Jimmy Hagan led the club to its third Taça de Portugal win in five years after defeating Sporting CP 1–0 in the replay of the 1979 final, after a 1–1 draw occurred the day prior.

[7] At the beginning of the following season, Porto and Boavista organised the first edition of the Portuguese Supercup, a season-opening match between the league and cup holders.

[9] After finishing runners-up to Sporting a year later, the squad began to break up, with Petit heading to Benfica and fellow midfielder Pedro Emanuel going to Porto; both skippered their new teams.

[9] Pacheco left for Spain's RCD Mallorca in 2003, returning soon to replace Sánchez briefly as manager the following year, and came back again in October 2006.

In the 2002–03 UEFA Cup, they reached the semi-finals before a 2–1 aggregate loss to Celtic due to a late Henrik Larsson strike; they would have faced Porto in the final.

[11] In June 2008, Boavista was sentenced to relegation for its part in the Apito Dourado (Golden Whistle) matchfixing scandal, for three games in the 2003–04 season.

[17] In October 2020, Boavista's members approved of investment from Spanish-Luxembourgish businessman Gérard Lopez, owner of Ligue 1 club Lille OSC.

Boavista's black-and-white chequered shirt was introduced by journalist and club president Artur Oliveira Valença, based on a French team he had seen.