The station serves the residential neighbourhoods of Commonwealth and Tanglin Halt.

On 5 January 1985, Lim Kah Ngam and Aoki had won Contract 203 for the construction of Commonwealth and Buona Vista stations together with the viaduct from Queensway to Clementi Road.

[2] The station opened on 12 March 1988, as part of the extension of the MRT system from Outram Park to Clementi.

[3] Commonwealth had however retrofitted with platform screen doors from January 2011 and started operations on 28 April that year together with Queenstown,[4] and the fans began operating on 25 June 2012 together with Buona Vista station.

A new overhead bridge and two new exits were constructed starting mid-2012 and opened on 23 August 2015, the same day as Queenstown MRT station.