Before the championship's inception, cross-country rally raids were held across the world in a largely uncoordinated fashion, with no unified points structure or overarching governing body tying results together. The FIM, which oversees motorcycle and quad competition globally, sought to address this by creating a calendar that brought the major events under one umbrella. The series launched in 1999, initially styled as a World Cup rather than a full championship, reflecting the FIM's cautious approach to a discipline that spanned multiple continents and conditions.
The series began awarding results in 1999 and ran in that World Cup format through the 2002 season. The strong participation numbers from the very first edition prompted the FIM to elevate the competition to the status of a formal World Championship in subsequent years, reflecting both the prestige of the events involved and the growing international competitor base.
The championship covered the main overall classification for motorcycles and was accompanied by parallel World Cup competitions in several supporting categories. These sub-championships included titles for Quads, Women, Juniors, and riders competing on machines over 450 cc displacement. Each of these categories followed the same calendar of cross-country rally events and awarded standings points across the season's rounds.
A separate but related competition ran concurrently for the shorter-format events in the discipline: the FIM Bajas World Cup, which covered "baja" style rally raids. These events differ from the multi-day desert epics typical of cross-country rallies, instead running over compressed distances and time frames. The Bajas World Cup operated as a distinct entity alongside the main cross-country championship.
The Women's World Cup carried particular significance in its final year of 2021. Russian competitor Anastasiya Nifontova was permitted to take part that season only as a neutral competitor, carrying the designation MFR (Motorcycle Federation of Russia) rather than competing under the Russian flag. This arrangement followed a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that upheld a ban on Russia participating in world championships, a consequence of the World Anti-Doping Agency's response to the state-sponsored doping program uncovered in Russian athletics. Nifontova's neutral status allowed her to continue competing individually while the national federation was barred from official participation.
The FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship ran for 23 seasons before its format was superseded. In 2022, the FIM series merged with the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies — the parallel car-and-truck championship run under automobile federation rules — to create the World Rally-Raid Championship. This unified series brought four-wheeled and two-wheeled competition under a single overarching structure for the first time, with the new championship administered jointly and replacing both predecessor competitions.
The FIM championship's legacy is the legitimization and standardization of rally raid competition at the top level of motorcycle sport. By establishing a world title, it elevated the discipline's standing and provided a coherent framework that attracted factory and semi-factory teams, shaped the development of dedicated cross-country rally machinery, and gave riders a recognized pinnacle to compete for across the grueling terrain events that define the sport.