The station, which is 67¾ miles from Belfast, was opened on 4 December 1855 by the Ballymena, Ballymoney, Coleraine and Portrush Junction Railway.

To accommodate excursion and holiday traffic, extensive reconstruction by the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway, under the direction of its engineer and architect Berkeley Deane Wise, was completed in 1893.

In 2018, Graham Construction was appointed as the Principal Contractor to carry out development works to Portrush Station.

[6] This formed part of a wider £17 million investment to regenerate Portrush town ahead of The Open golf championship.

[7] The works involved demolition of the existing ticket office in order to replace it with a larger, station building complete with concourse waiting area, staff rooms and public toilets.