 Birender Singh Dhanoa was born in Deoghar in the Indian state of Bihar (now Jharkhand) to Sukhdev Kaur and Sorain Singh.His ancestral village is Gharuan in the state of Punjab near Chandigarh and Mohali.His father Sorain Singh, an IAS officer, served as the Chief Secretary to the governments of Punjab and Bihar during the 1980s, and later as an advisor to the Punjab state governor, and as an Election Commissioner of India.