Webster Shamu, Zimbabwe's minister of media, information and publicity, insisted the government had never banned the BBC from carrying out "lawful activities" in the country, but said there was a need to "put behind us the mutually ruinous relationship of the past".
According to a report in the Zimbabwe Times, the breakthrough follows talks between the government and the BBC's world news editor, Jon Williams, and Africa bureau editor, Sarah Halfpenny. CNN have also struck a similar deal.
Williams, to the Guardian, said: "We look forward to being able to operate legally in Zimbabwe."
"The most important thing is not what has happened over the past 10 years, it is that we can go into Zimbabwe and report openly and legally."
BBC reporters have been banned from Zimbabwe since 2001, after Joseph Winter, the Harare correspondent, was expelled from the country as part of a media crackdown ahead of the following year's presidential elections.
However, some corporation journalists have successfully gone undercover to report from the country. John Simpson, BBC world affairs editor, reported on last year's election from within the borders without being detected.
The news comes only a month after the BBC's Iran correspondent was ordered to leave Tehran during the country's controversial elections.
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