Nushrat Bharucha was born in a Dawoodi Bohra Muslim family to Tanvir Bharucha and Tasneem Bharucha in Mumbai, India. She began her acting career in the year 2002 at the age of 16. As a student of Jai Hind college, she walked into a talent management firm hoping to volunteer as a scout but instead, they hired her to act in Kittie Party (2002), a television show being broadcast on Zee TV. But, the long work hours and poor treatment of newcomers led her to quit the show in a year. During her college days, Nushrat was involved in organizing events and the backstage production of plays. For one such event in the year 2009, she managed to get a leading facewash brand as a sponsor for a talent show. After five days of auditions, the brand announced that they had selected Nushrat to be their 'Fresh Face', as a consequence of which she featured in a couple of advertisements and a feature film.

In the year 2010, Nushrat received a call from casting director Atul Mongia's office for an audition, which turned out to be the first major breakthrough of her career as it led to her selection for Dibakar Banerjee's LSD: Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (2010).