Karoline Schuch was born in Jena on October 19 1981. At the age of six, she already appeared regularly in theatre productions, and as a teenager, she took acting classes and had professional voice training. In 2000, she made her TV debut as a regular cast member of the daily soap "Verbotene Liebe". She went on to play the daughter of police detective Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär) in an episode of "Tatort", and in 2002, she had her first feature film appearance in Annette Ernst's "Kiss and Run".

Since then, she frequently starred in TV productions, including the comedies "Die Schönste aus Bitterfeld" (2003) and "Seventeen – Mädchen sind die besseren Jungs" (2003), Margarethe von Trotta's drama "Die andere Frau" (2004), and the fairy tale adaptation "Das tapfere Schneiderlein" (2008). In addition to this, she guest-starred in numerous TV series and in 2008 received the Günther-Strack-Television-Award for "Best Newcomer" for her performance in the "Tatort" episode "Bevor es dunkel wird" (2007).

Among the prominent cinema releases featuring Schuch were Christian Klandt's drama "Weltstadt", which was based on real-life incidents of youth violence in Brandenburg, and the biopic "Zeiten ändern Dich" (2010), in which she played the first love of rap artist Bushido.

In 2012, Schuch appeared in two memorable screen roles: She played an ambitious prosecutor on the trail of a crime boss  in Til Schweiger's thriller "Schutzengel", and embodied the crush of a shy computer nerd (Oliver Korittke) in Marc Rothemund's comedy "Mann tut was Mann kann". She then began work on "Hannas Reise", starring in the role of a young woman who moves to Israel solely to further her career, but who eventually starts to develop a genuine interest in the country and its complex, multi-faceted relation to Germany, as well as in her own family history. Directed by Julia von Heinz, the film was released in January 2014.

Also in 2014, Karoline Schuch appeared in the comedy film "Wir sind die Neuen" before she starred in "Da muss Mann durch" (2015), a sequel of "Mann tut was Mann kann". Julia von Heinz then cast her for the role of a pilgrim on the Way of Saint James for her adaptation of the bestseller "Ich bin dann mal weg" ("I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago", 2015). Two years later, she worked again with von Heinz, this time playing the lead character in von Heinz' TV film "Katharina Luther" (2017). On the big screen she starred in the fable "Nur ein Tag" as an enchanting day fly that doesn’t know she only lives for a day. In September 2018, Michael Herbig's "Ballon" was released in German cinemas. In this drama based on actual events Karoline Schuch portrayed one of four people that together try to escape from the GDR in a self-built hot-air balloon.

Along with her acting career, Karoline Schuch studied psychology in Berlin. Her brother Albert Schuch also works as an actor.