It was formed on 3 July 2015, as part of the post-Euromaidan reforms launched by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, to replace Ukraine's previous national police service, the Militsiya.

Parliamentary elections were held in October 2014, after which all five of the parties that formed the governing coalition pledged to reform the ministry and create a new national police service.

[8] As part of the reforms, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, presented plans to reduce the number of police officers in Ukraine to 160,000 by the end of 2015.

[9] The reform plans started with the combination of the ministry's current State Auto Inspection (DAI) and the patrol service in the country's capital Kyiv in summer 2015.

[4] The change allowed for them to become members of the National Police after "integrity checks", but they were only eligible if they met the age criteria and went through retraining.

[21] The NPU was assisted by the EU Advisory Mission Ukraine between 2017 and 2022 through the PRAVO Police Programme, implemented by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), in an effort to modernize Ukrainian law enforcement to European standards.

According to Professor Oleksandr Ponomariv of the Kyiv University's Institute of Journalism, the correct Ukrainian language term for a police officer is 'politsiyant' (поліціянт).

This is in contrast to the term 'politseysky' (поліцейський), a loan word from the Russian language, commonly used to refer to an officer of the National Police.

In addition to these specific groups, all police forces retain a majority of officers for the purpose of patrol duty and general law enforcement.