Shimoda Station has a one ground-level island platform and one ground-level side platform serving three tracks connected to the station building by a footbridge. However, only tracks 1 and 3 are in use, and track 2 is used as a siding. The station is staffed.
Shimoda Station was opened on December 20, 1891 as a station on the Nippon Railway. It became a station on the Tōhoku Main Line of the Japanese Government Railways (JGR), the pre-war predecessor to the Japan National Railway (JNR) after the nationalization of the Nippon Railway on November 1, 1906. Regularly scheduled freight services were discontinued in October 1971, and it has been managed from Misawa Station since February 1983. With the privatization of the JNR on April 1, 1987, it came under the operational control of JR East.
The section of the Tōhoku Main Line including this station was transferred to Aoimori Railway on December 4, 2010.