Renner was born in Modesto, California, to mother Valerie Cearley (née Tague) and father Lee Renner, who managed McHenry Bowl, a Modesto bowling alley, in the 1980s. His parents married as teenagers and divorced when Jeremy Renner was ten. Jeremy Renner is the oldest of seven siblings, the youngest of whom was born in 2011. His mother has Irish ancestry. Renner is also of German descent.

Renner graduated from Fred C. Beyer High School in Modesto in 1989. Jeremy Renner attended Modesto Junior College, where Jeremy Renner studied computer science and criminology, before Jeremy Renner took a drama class as an elective and decided to pursue acting