Series creator Joe Weisberg is a former CIA officer; while taking his CIA polygraph exam, he was asked if he was joining just to gain material to write about later, a question that had never occurred to him but stuck with him.

Weisberg was partly inspired by the 2010 Illegals Program spy scandal, using Vasili Mitrokhin's notes on the KGB's Cold War operations and conversations with former CIA colleagues, but chose to set the show in the early 1980s rather than modern day because a contemporary setting 'didn't seem like a good idea.'

Executive producer Graham Yost discovered Weisberg's spy pilot script after reading his 2007 novel An Ordinary Spy and found it 'annoyingly good,' which led to the show's development.

FX president John Landgraf specifically suggested casting Keri Russell in the series, while Matthew Rhys was recommended by DreamWorks casting head Leslie Feldman after she saw him in a play; the two had only briefly met at a party before without being properly introduced.

Noah Emmerich was initially reluctant to play Stan Beeman because he didn't want to do another TV role carrying a gun or badge, but was persuaded by his friend Gavin O'Connor, who directed the pilot.

Susan Misner (Sandra Beeman), Annet Mahendru (Nina), and Alison Wright (Martha) were all promoted from recurring to series regulars starting in season two, and Lev Gorn (Arkady) was similarly promoted to regular for season three.

The series was filmed primarily in New York City, using Eastern Effects Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and street locations in Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Cobble Hill, among other NYC-area spots, to simulate the Washington, D.C. setting.

Early filming on the first season was delayed by flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy, and some scenes in the fifth and sixth seasons were shot on location in Moscow.

Although the Jennings couple pose as Americans and rarely speak Russian on screen, many other Soviet characters converse in Russian; actress Annet Mahendru, who is multilingual and has a Russian mother, praised Matthew Rhys for his efforts to deliver his few Russian lines convincingly.

In June 2025, a South Korean remake titled The Koreans was announced, directed by Ahn Gil-ho and starring Lee Byung-hun, reimagining the story around North Korean sleeper agents during South Korea's 1980s military dictatorship.