It derives from the traditional triple-purpose Braunvieh ("Swiss Brown") of the Alpine region of Europe, but has diverged substantially from it.

In the twentieth century the Brown Swiss became a world breed, with a global population estimated in 1990 at seven million head.

[4] The Braunvieh is a traditional breed of triple-purpose cattle from the Alpine region, particularly Switzerland; at was reared as a draft beast, for its milk and for its meat.

The Braunvieh was first imported to the United States in 1869, when seven cows and a bull were shipped to one Henry M. Clark in Belmont, Massachusetts.

In the mid-twentieth century, intensive selective breeding for dairy characteristics and excessive inbreeding led to a loss of genetic diversity, and also to an increase in transmissible genetic defects such as the recessive factors for bovine progressive degenerative myeloencephalopathy ("weaver disease") and spinal muscular atrophy, both of which have a high percentage of carriers in the Brown Swiss (2.6% and 9.2% respectively).