In December 2013, JYP Entertainment announced the debut of a new girl group for the first half of the coming year. In February 2014, JYP trainees Lena and Cecilia were announced as members, while there were rumors about possible other members. After Cecilia left the agency, she was to be replaced by Sana. However, Lena eventually left the agency as well and the group's debut was cancelled.

On February 11, 2015, Park Jin Young finally announced that the members of a new girl group would be determined by the channel Mnet's casting show Sixteen. JYP stated in a press conference that the new group would have the "natural and healthy feeling" of Wonder Girls and Miss A, with a wilder and more biting side. The show began on May 5, 2015, with Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, and Chaeyoung successfully emerging from it as members of the group Twice. However, Park Jin-young later announced that he was increasing the number of members from seven to nine and adding Tzuyu and Momo. The reasons, he said, were Tzuyu's popularity among fans of the casting show and Momo's performance.

On July 10, 2015, the opening of the group's Instagram account followed with the first, official picture. Even before their debut, the web series TwiceTV aired, featuring the stories and hopes of the members as they prepared for their debut.

On October 20, 2015, the EP "The Story Begins" and the music video for "Like OOH-AHH" were released through the platform V Live. The title track was written by Black Eyed Pilseung and Sam Lewis. Within five months, their debut video reached more than 50 million views on YouTube, more than the debut songs of any other K-pop group. It is also the first debut video by a K-pop group to have more than 100 million views on YouTube. By December, Twice had 10 advertising contracts that earned them about 1.8 billion won.

Twice's second EP, "Page Two," was released on April 25, 2016. The group held a performance in Seoul for it. On May 5, Twice received their first award for the title song "Cheer Up" on the program M!Countdown. This was followed by wins in Music Bank and Inkigayo.

To celebrate Twice's first anniversary, the group released the song "One in a Million" on October 20 through an appearance on Naver V Live. Shortly after, the third mini-album, "Twicecoaster: Lane 1," was released on October 24. In it, the title song "TT" has a Halloween theme. On January 3, 2017, the music video for "TT" also reached 100 million views, setting a record at the time. No other music video by a South Korean group previously reached this milestone in such a short period of time. Meanwhile, the video for "TT" had more than 600 million views on the video platform YouTube by early 2022. Twice was also the previous record holder with "Cheer Up." A Christmas edition of "Twicecoaster: Lane 1" was released at the end of the year

From February 17 to 19, 2017, the group held their first concert called "Twice 1st Tour: Twiceland The Opening" at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium as the first part of their world tour. A day after that, the re-release of their previous EP titled "Twicecoaster: Lane 2" was released. The title song included in it is "Knock Knock." Lane 2 recorded about 310,000 pre-orders within a week.

"Signal," the group's fourth mini-album, was released on May 15 along with the single of the same name. The mini-album and single both reached No. 1 on the charts. On June 14, Twice released the Japanese version of "Signal" as the advance single to their official debut in Japan, which was followed by the album "#Twice" on June 28. "#Twice" rose to No. 2 on the Oricon album chart.

On October 18, their first Japanese single "One More Time" was released. With 94,957 copies sold on the first day, they immediately set a new record for a K-pop girl group in Japan. On October 30, Twice's first full studio album called "Twicetagram" was released, featuring the album track "Likey." The music video for "Likey," which was filmed in Canada in early September, reached 10,767,044 views in the first 24 hours, setting a new personal record for Twice.

In 2018, Twice intensified their activities in Japan. They released two Japanese singles, "Candy Pop" and "Wake Me Up." Furthermore, they recorded a cover of the Jackson 5 song "I Want You Back" as the theme song for the Japanese movie Sensei Kunshu. September saw the release of their first Japanese-language studio album, BDZ. In South Korea, the group released "What Is Love?" in April, "Dance the Night Away" in July and "Yes or Yes" in November.

On March 6, 2019, they released the Japanese album "Twice2," which consists of songs from previous Korean albums translated into Japanese. A month later on April 22, they released the album "Fancy You2. With this album, they sold more albums than Girls' Generation, and thus more than any other Korean girl group. On June 11, Twice released two Japanese singles in one day. The two songs are "Happy Happy" and "Breakthrough." "Happy Happy" represents a bright summer day and "Breakthrough" shows the feelings of a cool summer night.  On May 25, the "TWICELIGHTS" world tour began in Seoul and ended in Kuala Lumpur on August 17. Concerts were held in various cities in Asia, North America and South America. This was followed by the eighth mini-album called "Feel Special" on September 23, 2019. The album followed a new concept for Twice, but was still successful.

On April 29, 2020, the eight-part documentary series "Twice: Seize the Light" about the girl group and their tour "Twicelights" was released on Youtube. The group's success just never seems to end.