Shreya Ghoshal was born on 12th March 1984 in Berhampore, West Bengal, India,  to Bengali parents, Sh. Bishwajit Ghoshal and Smt. Sarmistha Ghoshal. She spent her first three months of her life in her birthplace in West Bengal, then she moved to a place called Rawatbhata near Kota,   Rajasthan, where her father, who is an Electronics Engineer, was posted.  She has spent first thirteen years of formative part of her life there and completed her schooling up to Eighth Standard, in Atomic Energy Central School, Rawatbhata.

Life at Rawatbhata was simple, pristine, unpolluted, far from madding rush of a city. There used to be cultural programmes and social gatherings very often. Her mother is a singer and both of her parents are very much culturally inclined and they were very much involved with all those cultural activities. During those activities, as a small child, she picked up her first lessons in music. She used to hum the same songs with her immature words whatever her mother sang during rehearsals. It is during those days her potentials of singing was discovered by her parents.

At the age of 4, she started learning music, mainly Bengali songs, from her first Guru – her mother. She gave her first stage performance at their club’s annual function. At the age of 6, she started getting formal training in Hindustani Classical Music. She learned Classical Hindustani Music from Rakesh Sharmaji of Kota, Shri Jayawardhan Bhatnagar, her school's music teacher and thereafter, from Mahesh Chandra Sharmaji of Kota. She got her initial exposure to Hindi film songs and Rajasthani folk from Shri Bhatnagar. She received training in playback singing from Padmashree Late Kalyanji Bhai at a later stage. After shifting to Mumbai she continued her training in Classical Hindustani Music with Late Mukta Bhideji.