No one but the attacker was killed by the blast, which occurred shortly after noon, Kandahar provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Razaq said.
According to Razaq's account, a bomber entered the station by claiming he was carrying a letter of complaint, which he told guards he was trying to deliver to police authorities.
Police initially said the bomber was 14 or 15 years old, but other witnesses said he was at least in his 20s.
The teenager managed to pass through checkpoints without the explosives being found, and was inside the police compound when an Afghan border policeman shouted at him, asking where he was headed, Razaq said. The attacker then immediately detonated the explosives.
Razaq's office was partially destroyed and the windows of his office were shattered.
A statement from Kandahar's provincial government said the attacker was actually inside the waiting room outside Razaq's office when he detonated the explosives.
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Brig. Gen. Abdul Razzaq, speaking to reporters in Kandahar City, rejected rumours that he had suffered serious injuries in the assault on the police headquarters.
The suicide bombing took place at 1pm when they were turning in weapons to Disbandment of Illegal Armed Group officials at the police headquarters, he said.
"An 18-year-old with an application in his hand entered the building in a hurry and tried to reach my office," the police chief said, adding the young man blew himself up after being identified by border police.
A border police official was slightly wounded in the blast, according to Gen. Razzaq, who said the bomber told security guards that he needed urgent help in the recovery of a woman kidnapped from his residence.
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