The origin of the institution dates back to 1990 when it was established as a professional and vocational training provider in the Sultanate of Oman. In 1996, the training institute obtained the approval of the Ministry of Higher Education for offering the Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) through an International Outreach arrangement with the University of Hull UK. Furthermore, in 2003, the College was granted the approval from the Ministry of Higher Education to upgrade its status from a training institute to a Higher Education College. In addition to being licensed by the Ministry of Higher Education Research and Innovation, Gulf College is also institutionally accredited by the Oman Authority for Academic Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Education (OAAAQA) 

Currently, the College offers Bachelor of Arts programmes (Honours) in Accounting and Finance, Business Economics, Marketing Management and Business and Management Studies with pathways in Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Management, Bachelor of Science programmes (Honours) in Business Information Systems, Sport Management and Computer Science with pathways in Artificial Intelligence,

Data Analytics and Mobile Computing in academic affiliation with Cardiff Metropolitan University (Cardiff Met), UK. Moreover, the College offers full-time and part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) with pathways in Project Management, Finance, Marketing, Islamic Finance and Health Sector Management in academic affiliation with Cardiff Met. The College also offers its own General Foundation Programme. 

In 2014, the College moved into its new purpose-built campus in Mabela (Muscat). The campus has the following state of the art facilities: classrooms and lecture halls, assignment & information technology Labs,

Auditorium (1000 seating capacity), a conference hall (100 seating capacity) a library spread over two floors, incubators for entrepreneurs, a coffee shop, a clinic, two prayer hall’s (male & female), elevators and escalators, an outdoor Roman theatre, garden and landscaping, car park, restaurant (600 seating capacity), two gyms (male & female), an indoor sports stadium and outdoor sports stadium.