Commissioned in 1956 and officially opened on 5 February 1957, Salisbury Airport cost £924,000 to build. According to the 1950 report of the Director of Civil Aviation, the city's original aerodrome, Belvedere Airport, had proved to be inadequate and had to be abandoned for the following reasons:

the runway was some 45° out of alignment, given that approaching aircraft had to enter through a gap in Warren Hills;

because of the skewed align, aircraft were forced to take-off over the city centre, which posed a real danger of accidents;

the growing number of high-rise buildings in the city, particularly Milton Building, posed a risk to aircraft;

Belvedere Airport had been built to accommodate the RAF Elementary Flying Training School, so the layout and design of the buildings were not particularly suitable for commercial aviation.

A site therefore had to be found for the construction of an airport that would be safer and more suitable for commercial activities.

Originally, it was anticipated that the airport would be completed by 1954. It was, however, not completed until two years later, because the government ran out of funds in October 1952 and had to suspend the project temporarily. The new Salisbury Airport was finally commissioned on 1 July 1956 by the Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The cost of building the airport was £924,000.

The airport was attacked with mortar bombs by the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army during the 1979 Attack on Salisbury Airport, but remained unscathed after the attack.

On 18 April 1980, South Rhodesia was officially renamed as Zimbabwe, following its independence from Britain.

As a result of internal political conflicts since 2000, there has been a decline in tourists to Zimbabwe prior to the country's withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations three years later. Consequently, there are only two non-African airlines that serve the country: Emirates and Qatar Airways. Formerly British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Swissair, Qantas and Air France all served Harare International Airport for many years.

On 9 November 2017, Harare International Airport was officially, and controversially, renamed after the second President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe (1924–2019), to Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, a decision that was announced earlier in September 2017 and sparked a controversy, as many Zimbabweans felt that too many places in the country had already been renamed after Mugabe.