[1] The town was mentioned in 1497 in the deed, in which the Lithuanian Grand Duke and future King of Poland Alexander Jagiellon committed several villages to Prince Konstanty Ostrogski.

According to the 1921 census, the town had a mixed population, 40.0% Polish, 31.3% Ukrainian, 10.0% Jewish, 9,0% Russian, 8.9% Czech.

Its Jewish minority was murdered in the Holocaust, and in late 1943, Zdołbunów became a shelter for the ethnic Polish population of Volhynia, escaping the Volhynian Genocide.

On February 3, 1944, the town was captured by the Red Army, and eventually annexed from Poland.

Zdolbuniv is the birthplace of a contemporary Polish painter Stanislaw Fijalkowski (1922–2020), and singer Teresa Tutinas (born 1943)