The station, part of the Thames Gateway urban regeneration project, is on the High Speed 1 (HS1) rail line, 300 metres (980 feet) south-west of Northfleet railway station, off the A2 trunk road, 5 mi (8.0 km) from its junction with the M25 motorway.

[1] As part of the development of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) in the early 1990s, four potential station sites along the route were considered, with two in east London (Stratford and Rainham) and two in Kent (Nashenden on the outskirts of Rochester, and Ebbsfleet located southwest of Gravesend).

The station would serve both international and domestic trains, allow park and ride from nearby M2 and M25 motorways and stimulate development in the Thames Gateway.

Fisher described the station as "a big, generous light-filled bridge of steel and glass crossing the tracks and spanning the box".

[7] Serving the Thames Gateway, the station had an initial service of seven weekday trains to Paris and five to Brussels.

[15] In September 2021, Eurostar confirmed that services would not resume until 2023, despite complaints by local politicians that this was "bad for Kent".

[16] Eurostar stated that it would resume services when commercially sensible to do so, as it would initially "focus on destinations where demand is highest".

This is believed to have been put in place in preparation for the Ebbsfleet Garden City housing development project; however, it was never needed.

It is one of the relatively few stations in England to have bilingual signage, others being Wallsend (Latin), Southall (Punjabi), Hereford (Welsh), Whitechapel (Bengali), St Pancras and Ashford International (French).

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) Act allows a total of 9,000 car parking spaces to be constructed,[19] with an initial 6,000 built.

The station is served by Fastrack buses operated by Go Ahead London, which connect it to Dartford, Bluewater, Greenhithe, Swanscombe and Gravesend.

[citation needed] Eurostar services are not used for non-international journeys, as the infrastructure and train design is not suitable for national travel, and there is no feasible reason to do so.

Since the station's opening, Eurostar has withheld passenger usage statistics for international services, citing commercial confidentiality.