The Matsuura station consists of three bay platforms serving three tracks, with several sidings branching off.

[3] The JR station building, to the east, houses a waiting area and a ticket window.

[7][8] The station was opened on 7 August 1898 by the private Imari Railway as the northern terminus of a track which it had laid from Arita.

JGR undertook the next phase of expansion when the track was extended west to Kusuku on 21 March 1930.

With the privatization of Japanese National Railways (JNR), the successor of JGR, on 1 April 1987, control of the station passed to JR Kyushu.