Established on 22 June 2003,[2] MNA is the most multilingual (transmitting news and photos in six languages) news agency in the Islamic Republic of Iran and its first CEO and Director General was Parviz Esmaeili and its current CEO and Director General is Mohammad Mahdi Rahmati.

It has also stringers and correspondents in Europe, South America, Turkey, East Asia, and some Persian Gulf littoral states and CIS countries for the time–being and is extending them across the world.

It transmits news and photos in six languages of Persian, English, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and Kurdish.

Employing more than 300 reporters and photographers dispatched in 30 provinces of the country, MNA provides the widest news coverage in Iran.

In 2006, Mehr News Agency was described by the Anti-Defamation League as a "megaphone for notorious Holocaust deniers" because it had published interviews with Arthur Butz, Michael A. Hoffman II, Fredrick Toben, Paul Fromm, Mark Weber and Robert Faurisson.