Each Tour de Ski has consisted of six to nine stages, held during late December and early January in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.

The Tour de Ski is another such new event, and the idea has been reported to come from a meeting between former Olympic gold medallist Vegard Ulvang and Jürg Capol, the International Ski Federation's (FIS) chief executive officer for cross-country competitions, in Ulvang's sauna in Maridalen, Norway.

[3][4] Their idea was to create a stage competition consisting of different events which they expected would lead to several days of continuous excitement before the most complete skiers would become Tour de Ski champions.

However, as neither Austria or Switzerland were interested, the opening two stages were to be held in Nové Město na Moravě in the Czech Republic.

[6] A week before the Tour was due to start, FIS announced that snow conditions in Nové Město were not good enough, and cancelled the two races there.

The first Tour de Ski therefore opened with a sprint race in Munich on 31 December 2006, and was won by Marit Bjørgen (NOR) and Christoph Eigenmann (SUI).

[14] Newspaper comments were divided: in Expressen's opinion, the finish was the "most enjoyable competition seen in years,"[15] while Roland Wiedemann in Der Spiegel said this "should be the future of cross-country skiing".

[16] Critical commentaries appeared in Göteborgs-Posten, criticising the fact that sprinters didn't have a chance in the overall standings,[17] and Wiesbaden Kurier, describing it as a reality show and a skiing circus.

[11] Oberstdorf in Bavaria was originally scheduled to host two stages, but cancelled as the German Ski Association could only arrange a race on 2 January.

In 2017–18, the season Cologna won his record fourth overall Tour, Alex Harvey of Canada and Jessie Diggins of USA became the first non-Europeans to achieve podium spot for men and women respectively in the overall standings.

The overall results are based on the aggregate time for all events, as well as bonus seconds awarded on sprint and mass start stages.

By the 2018–19 Tour de Ski this last stage was held in a pursuit format, with competitors starting with the gaps they had in the overall classification, so the first skier to reach the top was the overall winner.

Since 2019–20 Tour de Ski the Final Climb is held in a mass start format, with stage results added to overall classification.

[25] In the mass start stages in the Tour de Ski, time bonuses are awarded to the top ten skiers of intermediate sprints.

[30] The amount of bonus seconds are higher in sprint races then other types to encourage sprinter specialists to go for results in the overall standings.

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (three times), Sergey Ustiugov and Marit Bjørgen are the only skiers who have led the overall standings from the first stage and held the lead all the way to the top of Alpe Cermis.

The biggest winning margin in the women's Tour is 2 min 42.0 s between Ingvild Flugstad Østberg and Natalia Nepryaeva in 2018–19.

Skiers who won the Tour de Ski and an individual Olympic gold medal in the same year include: Justyna Kowalczyk (2010), Dario Cologna (2018) and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (2022).

Six skiers have won the Tour de Ski and an individual World Championship gold medal in the same year.

These are: Virpi Kuitunen (2007), Marit Bjørgen (2015), Petter Northug (2015), Sergey Ustiugov (2017), Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (2019, 2023) and Alexander Bolshunov (2021).

Four skiers have won four times: Justyna Kowalczyk (Poland), Dario Cologna (Switzerland), Johannes Høsflot Klæbo and Therese Johaug (both from Norway).