This company was established as Joso Railway in 1913. In 1945, Joso Railway was merged into Joso-Tsukuba Railway with Tsukuba Railway. Joso-Tsukuba Railway was split into Kanto Railway in 1965, which merged with Ryugasaki Railway. Around 1980, Tsukuba Railway (which would be suspended) and Kashima Railway (which would be replaced by the Keisei affiliated company Kashitetsu Bus) were split from Kanto Railway. Mount Tsukuba Cable Car and Mount Tsukuba Ropeway were transferred to Keisei Electric Railway.
Kanto Railway has had a 0.01% investment in Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company since 2001.
Kanto Railway is also a bus company with coverage in the south and central Ibaraki and east Chiba. The bus department occupies 70% of benefit of the Kanto Railway. The company has ten offices and the service distance is 2,788.8 km.
The bus department used to have vast bus routes, but some were discontinued after proving unprofitable. Currently, certain discontinued bus routes have been revived as community buses operated by subsidiary bus companies (Kantetsu Green Bus, Kantetsu Purple Bus and Kantetsu Kankō Bus) in areas of Sakuragawa, Chikusei and more places.
The company has coverage of many attractions (Mount Tsukuba, Lake Kasumigaura, Kairakuen and so on), commercial facilities (Ami Premium Outlet, AeonMall Tsukuba and more), and a bed suburb of Tokyo (Tsukuba).