Initially powered by two BMW/Rolls-Royce BR710s, it shares its fuselage cross section with the Canadair Regional Jet and Challenger 600 with a new wing and tail.

The longer range Global 5500/6500 are powered by new Rolls-Royce Pearl engines with lower fuel burn and were unveiled in May 2018.

To meet this goal, a joint-definition team was established at the company's Montreal facility in the early 1990s.

[4] The new aircraft was designed to use the minimum number of components while still ensuring that no single failure would result in a diversion or the inability to dispatch a flight.

As operators sought a level of safety enjoyed by airline aircraft, Bombardier was influenced to use ETOPS design rules, such as the incorporation of a maintenance computer to detect, indicate, and isolate faults, although ETOPS rules were not a design requirement.

[8] By June 1995, the backlog was over 40 aircraft, sold out until 2000, leading to Bombardier to expand its early production plans.

The first sections were expected in December at de Havilland's in Toronto, with final assembly to start in March 1996.

[15][16] By June 1996, the prototype was complete and conducting flight-readiness reviews ahead of its roll-out and first flight.

[17][18] On 13 October 1996, the first prototype performed its maiden flight from Toronto, one month later than planned, lasting for 2 hours 46 minutes and attaining 11,000 ft (3,350 m) and 210 kn (390 km/h).

[26] Since 2012, Japanese aerospace firm Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has built the wing and centre fuselage sections at its Toronto facility located east of the airport on Northwest Drive, and formerly at 2025 Meadowvale Boulevard from 2007 to 2012.

[27][28] Bombardier subsidiaries involved are Canadair as the design leader and nose manufacturer; Short Brothers in Belfast for the engine nacelles design and manufacture, horizontal stabiliser and forward fuselage; and de Havilland Canada for the rear fuselage, vertical tail and final assembly.

[4][29][30] In May 2015, production was reduced because of lower demand, caused by slowing economy and geopolitics in Latin America, Russia and China markets.

[33] The Global Express is a high speed business/corporate aircraft with a range of 6,500 nmi (12,000 km) at Mach 0.80 (459 kn; 850 km/h),[34] a 51,000 ft (16,000 m) service ceiling and a 14 hours endurance.

[36] The cabin has an unobstructed length of 14.6 m (48 ft) while the floor is dropped by 51 mm (2.0 in) from the Challenger to increase width at shoulder level, while the windows have been repositioned and enlarged by 25%.

It was launched in February 2002, with letters of intent for 15 aircraft with a 87,700 lb (39,800 kg) MTOW, and a 4,800 nmi (8,900 km) range at Mach 0.85.

[39] In April 2008, Bombardier lifted its MTOW to 92,500 lb (42,000 kg) to increase its Mach 0.85 range to 5,200 nmi (9,600 km).

[40] Its cabin is 5.9 ft (1.8 m) shorter than the Global 6000 with a 5,800–7,000 lb (2,600–3,200 kg) lower MTOW depending on service bulletins.

[39] The improved Global Express XRS was announced on 6 October 2003 during the NBAA Convention at Orlando, Florida.

[44] It replaced the original Global Express and provides greater range at high speed, cabin upgrades, improved takeoff performance, fast fueling capability and the Bombardier Enhanced Vision System (BEVS) as standard equipment.

[34] Bombardier rebranded the Global Express XRS and upgraded the avionics from the Honeywell Primus 2000XP to the new Bombarder Vision flight deck, based on the Rockwell Collins Pro Line Fusion avionics suite, to create the Global 6000.

It has an optimized wing for a Mach 0.90 top speed, a revamped cabin inspired by the Global 7500 with its Nuage seat and updated Rolls-Royce BR710 Pearl engines with up to 13% lower fuel burn for better operating costs.

[51] In September 2019, Bombardier announced the Transport Canada Type Certification of both models, before entry-into-service later in 2019 and FAA/EASA approval.

[57] The first Global 5500 was delivered in July 2020, to " longtime Bombardier customer Unicorp National Developments, headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

[61] A BD-700 has carried the High-Altitude Lidar Operational Experiment (HALOE) payload, deploying to Africa and Afghanistan to survey large areas rapidly.

[69] In March 2019 Turkey's Presidency of Defense Industries, SSB, announced that two green Bombardier Global 6000s had been delivered to the facilities of Turkish Aerospace to undergo modification to the Hava SOJ (air stand-off jammer) configuration.

[70] In July 2023, L3Harris unveiled a Conformal Airborne Early Warning version as a replacement for the E-3 Sentry used by European NATO countries.

[71][72] In December 2023, the US Army awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for one Global 6500, with an option for two more, to be used as a High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft.

NetJets operates at least six and large corporations like Aetna, Caterpillar, CitiGroup, Limited Brands, McDonald's and Texas Instruments fly the aircraft.