Kaushal was born on 16 May 1988 in a chawl in suburban Mumbai to Sham Kaushal, a stuntman and subsequent action director in Hindi films. His younger brother, Sunny, is also an actor. His family is Punjabi. Kaushal has described himself as a "regular kid who was interested in studying, playing cricket and watching movies".His father was keen on his son having a stable career and Kaushal thus pursued an engineering degree in electronics and telecommunications from Mumbai's Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology.
