It received Magdeburg rights in Piotrków Trybunalski, on 14 May 1567, from Polish King Sigismund II Augustus.

Austrian rule ended in 1809 (see Polish–Austrian War), and for the next 6 years, Tarnogród belonged to the Polish Duchy of Warsaw, in which it became the seat of a county (until 1842).

In 1815, the Duchy was dissolved and the town passed to Russian-controlled Congress Poland, in which it initially was the 7th largest city (after Warsaw, Kalisz, Lublin, Płock, Zamość and Piotrków Trybunalski), with a population of 3,391.

There is a memorial to the fallen Polish insurgents from Tarnogród in the Przedmieście Płuskie district in the northern part of the town.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, on 15 September 1939, the Wehrmacht entered the village, burning several houses.

Polish prisoners of war captured by the Russians in Tarnogród were deported to Kozelsk and then murdered in the large Katyn massacre in 1940.

Germans carried out several massacres in the area of the village, which resulted in the Polish rebellion, the Zamość Uprising.

The Jewish community was liquidated on 2 November 1942, when 3,000 Jews from Tarnogród and its vicinity were deported to the Belzec extermination camp.