The National Polytechnical Museum was established on 13 May 1957 by a Council of Ministers decree, initially under the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. It was declared a national museum in 1968.

Since 1992, the museum is located in a building formerly used as a museum to Georgi Dimitrov. It has been completely renovated in 2012 at a cost of 640,000 lv (326,000 euro). The National Polytechnical Museum regularly participates in the annual Night of Museums.

The museum has a collection of more than 22,000 items, but only 1,000 of them are permanently displayed. Collections are supplemented by a library with more than 12,000 books and journals, and an archive of about 2,000 documents.