It is funded and run by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, and is classified as a triple-nave stave church of the Sogn-type.

[3] The intervening staves rise from the ground sills; each is tongued and grooved, to interlock with its neighbours and form a sturdy wall.

Borgund Stave Church is built on a basilica plan, with reduced side aisles, and an added chancel and apse.

Above the arcade, the columns are linked by cross-shaped, diagonal trusses, commonly dubbed "Saint Andrew's crosses"; these carry arched supports that offer the visual equivalent of a "second storey".

The weight of the roof is thus supported by buttresses and columns, preventing downward and outward movement of the stave walls.

[9] Borgund has tiered, overhanging roofs, topped at their intersection by a shingle-roofed tower or steeple that straddles the ridge.

Similar gable heads appear on small bronze church-shaped reliquaries common in Norway and Europe in this period.

[14] The church's west portal (the nave's main entrance), is surrounded by a larger carving of dragons biting each other in the neck and tail.

Bugge writes that Christian authority may have come to terms with such pagan and "wild scenes" in the church building because the rift could be interpreted as a struggle between good and evil; in Christian medieval art, the dragon was often used as a symbol of the devil himself but Bugge believes that the carvings were protective, like the dragon heads on the church roof.

Three entrances are heavily adorned with foliage and snakes, and are only wide enough for one person to enter, supposedly preventing the entry of evil spirits alongside the churchgoers.

The interior structure of the church is characterized by the twelve free-standing columns that support the nave's elevated central space.

The double interval provides free access from the south portal to the church's central compartment, which would otherwise have been obstructed by the middle bar.

The interior choir walls and west portal have engraved figures and runes, some of which date to the Middle Ages.

An inscription by Þórir (Thor), written "in the evening at St. Olav's Mass" blames the pagan Norns for his problems; perhaps a residue of ancient beliefs, as these female beings were thought to rule the personal destinies of all in Norse mythology and the Poetic Edda.

The original wooden floor and the benches that run along the walls of the nave are largely intact, together with a medieval stone altar and a box-shaped baptismal font in soapstone.

[18] The painting on the altarpiece shows the crucifixion in the centre, flanked by the Virgin Mary on the left and John the Baptist on the right.

[22][better source needed]It was given a new door around the year 1700 but this was removed and not replaced at some time between the 1920s and 1940s, leaving the foundry pit exposed.

From 2001, the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage has funded a program to research, restore, conserve and maintain stave churches.