The Provincial Historical Archive of Biscay, as is the case with the other Provincial Historical Archives, has its legal origin in the Decree of 12 November, 1931 of the Ministries of Justice and Public Instruction and Fine Arts, on names and rules governing the historical archives of notarial records and provincial historical archives, by which the notarised records dating back hundreds of years were assigned to the care of the Body of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists in order to reorganise them as historical archives. The Decree created the Historical Archives of Notarial Records in the provincial capitals with Associations of Notaries, and the Provincial Historical Archives in the capitals that did not have an Association of Notaries.

However, the turbulent years of the Republic and the Civil War, and the social and economic circumstances that hit the country during the years immediately following the conflict, delayed the effective establishment of these archives in most Spanish provinces. In the case of Biscay it was not until 1942 that it was created. The following year the documentation corresponding to the notarial district of Valmaseda was collected, to be followed in 1950 by the notarial district of Bilbao (until then stored in precarious conditions), with that corresponding to the district of Durango being delayed until 1959.

The Decree of 24 July 1947 of the Ministry of National Education on the regulation of archives and libraries and the historical and documentary and bibliographic heritage was an additional regulation affecting the content of the Historical Provincial Archives. It ruled that these archives should store not only notarial records, but the historical records of the courts, treasury and other public authorities of the province. Thus, the application of the Decree and that of other subsequent legal provisions led to the incorporation of historical funds from the Mortgage Accounts, the Property Register and the Tax Authority.

Some years later, in 1969, article 5 of the Decree of 8 May of the Ministry of Education and Science on the creation of the General Archive of the Civil Administration, extended the historical nature of the Provincial Historical Archives, assigning them functions as temporary storage archives for the documents issued by the provincial services of the Central and Institutional Administration.

In compliance with this new function, the funds generated by the different General State Administration services in the province began to be incorporated. Although they did not yet have a historical value, they lost part of their administrative validity and the decline in their primary consultation argued for their transfer.

As a result, the centre combines its functions as a temporary storage archive, receiving every year documents that are more than 15 years old, with that of a historical archive, which preserves documents of a historical nature.

In 2011, Royal Decree 897/2011 of 24 June, on the extension of the General State Administration functions and services transferred to the Regional Government of the Basque Country, transferred the management of the Historical Provincial Archive of Biscay, together with those of Alava and Guipuzcoa, to the Basque Government. In 2012 the agreement concluded by the two levels of government was published for its application and implementation.

Since 2018 it has been an archive managed by the Provincial Council of Biscay in virtue of the transfer by the Basque Regional Government by Decree 87/2018 of 12 June.

Until 1988, when it was moved to its current headquarters in calle Henao in Bilbao, the Provincial Historical Archive did not have its own building. Instead, it had occupied a number of provisional premises.

As had happened with the rest of the Provincial Historical Archives created in those years, the first location was a space made available in the basement of the palace housing the Provincial Council of Vizcaya, as the law to this effect ruled that the provincial councils and local councils of the provincial capitals must provide the premises and the resources for the installation and operation of these archives.

As the activities of the archive grew and needed a whole building for its purposes, it came to occupy a State building (shared with other services of the state administration), requisitioned from its owner the shipbuilder Ramón de la Sota, due to his hostility to the nationalist cause.

It remained there in precarious conditions until in the 1980s the building was returned to the Sota family and sold. The Archive was once more in a precarious condition, so the State began to work together with the Association of Notaries of Bilbao (which had then been recently established as such) to find a building that could be the permanent headquarters of the Archive. In 1985 a building in the centre of Bilbao was acquired which had been the headquarters of the daily La Gaceta del Norte until its closure.

A typical construction of the Bilbao urban expansion of the early 20th century, it was extended in the 1950s by adding to its rear a six-storey building housing the machinery and materials needed for publishing a newspaper.

The precarious circumstances mentioned above meant that in 1988 the documents and staff had to be moved to the new building, although it was still not refurbished. The works to reform and adapt it were extended to 1992, when it was opened to the public.

Although it is a modest building, with significant limitations of space for the public areas and administrative tasks, the whole rear of the building is used as a deposit, with all the conditions needed for the ideal conservation of documents. The archive has reproduction (microfilm) and restoration services.