Its original building was designed by architect Sybold van Ravesteyn and was completed on 13 March 1957, officially opening on 21 May.

On 9 February 1968 Princess Beatrix opened the first metro line in the Netherlands at Centraal station.

In June 2004, ProRail, NS and the Municipality of Rotterdam awarded the contract to Team CS, a cooperative between Benthem Crouwel Architekten, MVSA Meyer & Van Schooten Architects, and West 8, for transforming the existing plans into a design for the new Central Station.

On 16 May 2006 Mayor Ivo Opstelten revealed a work of Onno Poiesz consisting of the word EXIT, which was mounted behind the windows of the facade.

Some of the letters "CENTRAAL STATION" that stood on the roof of the station until its closing were put in a different order by Peter Hopman and Margien Reuvekamp of Bureau Lakenvelder to read "TRAAN LATEN" ("SHED A TEAR").

Passengers then, for years, had to use amenities housed in a temporary shelter, a smurf-blue building complex on Conrad Street on the northeast corner of the Groothandelsgebouw.

Some modifications to accommodate security screening of Eurostar passengers from the UK were made and finished in March 2018.

Track 1 serves metro line E, part of RandstadRail in the direction Den Haag Central Station.

On 4 February 2020, the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, and the UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, announced that juxtaposed controls would be established in the station.

Major destinations include: Amsterdam, Amersfoort, Bergen op Zoom, Breda, Dordrecht, Delft, The Hague (Den Haag), Eindhoven, Gouda, Groningen, Haarlem, Leeuwarden, Leiden, Middelburg, Roosendaal, Tilburg, Utrecht, Venlo, Vlissingen and Zwolle.

The station is served by almost all lines in the Rotterdam tramway network (4, 7, 8, 12, 20, 21, 23, 24 and 25) and are operated by RET.

The new travelers passage includes two supermarkets, a HEMA, a range of take-away food options, and two branches of Starbucks.