Park Shin-hye debuted in the entertainment industry in 2003 with an appearance in the music video for Lee Seung-hwan’s song Flower. Some of her early notable acting projects are 2003’s Stairway to Heaven, where she played the young counterpart of Choi Ji-woo’s character, and 2006’s Tree of Heaven, where she portrayed her first adult leading role. In 2009, she was cast in SBS’s You’re Beautiful, which earned her the New Star Award at the SBS Drama Awards. In 2011, she starred in the MBC series You’ve Fallen for Me, which gave her the Baeksang Most Popular Actress trophy. In 2013, she acted alongside Lee Min-ho and Kim Woo-bin in the popular SBS drama Heirs, which scored her numerous citations. That same year, she appeared in the blockbuster comedy-drama film Miracle in Cell No. 7, which won her Best Supporting Actress at the 33rd Korean Association of Film Critics Awards and another Baeksang Most Popular Actress trophy. In 2014, she took home a Top Excellence Award at the SBS Drama Awards for her work in Pinocchio. In 2016, she bagged another Top Excellence Award at the SBS Drama Awards for Doctors. In 2018, she was paired with Hyun Bin in the tvN sci-fi series Memories of the Alhambra. In 2021, she returned to television in another sci-fi drama called Sisyphus, which aired on JTBC.

Park Shin-hye studied theater at Chung-Ang University. Her older brother Park Shin-won is a guitarist and composer. In November 2021, it was revealed that the actress and her long-time boyfriend, actor Choi Tae-joon, were expecting their first child and were preparing for marriage. They held their wedding ceremony in January 2022 in Seoul. On May 31, Park Shin-hye gave birth to a son.