Katrina Kaif made her acting debut with Kaizad Gustad's box office bomb Boom. She tasted success in 2007 with Vipul Shah's Namastey London and Anees Bazmee's Welcome. She has since appeared in films like New York (2009) and Rajneeti (2010). While the former earned Kaif her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress nomination, the latter emerged as her biggest commercial success so far.

Kaif began her modeling career at age fourteen, her first assignment was for a jewelry campaign. She continued modeling in London under a contract with the Models 1 Agency and did campaigns for houses such as La Senza and Arcadius, and even walked on the London Fashion Week.

In the year 2002, Katrina Kaif was chosen as Coca-Cola's brand ambassador in Tamil Nadu along with Tamil leading actor Vijay. The Coca-Cola advertisement was popular in Tamil Nadu, with Katrina Kaif and Vijay dancing to a Tamil song called "Gullu Gullu". She has also worked for several skin products companies, particularly Veet, as well as several multi-national brands, such as Panasonic. Katrina is now the brand ambassador of the national airline of the United Arab Emirates – Etihad Airways.

In 2005, Katrina Kaif made a cameo in Ram Gopal Verma's drama Sarkar, as Abhishek Bachchan's girlfriend. The same year, she landed her first major role in David Dhawan's adaptation of Cactus Flower, Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, where she was paired opposite Salman Khan. In 2007, Katrina Kaif appeared in four films, all of which were successful at the box office.

In 2010, Katrina Kaif received her first nomination in the Filmfare Award for Best Actress category for the movie Kabir Khan's terrorism drama "New York".

It should be noted that due to Katrina Kaif poor knowledge of Hindi (and other Indian languages), Kaif's voice was often dubbed by another actress. However, with the exception of "De Dana Dan" she has used her own voice for all of her films since "New York" movie. Earlier, she had dubbed for films like Namastey London and Singh Is King.

On 15 July 2011, she was seen alongside Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol and Kalki Koechlin in Zoya Akhtar's road adventure "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara". which was a critical and commercial success. Kaif was also praised for her portrayal of fun-loving diving instructor Laila.

Katrina Kaif last release of 2011 was Yash Raj Films' Mere Brother Ki Dulhan opposite Imran Khan and Ali Zafar. The film was successful at the box office, and earned Kaif rave reviews for her portrayal of vivacious punk-rock girl Dimple Dixit.

Katrina Kaif had made Mumbai her base, didn't mind singing and dancing around trees and as a result is now one of the biggest mega-stars, perhaps one of the highest paid female-lead actresses in Bollywood, and a crowd-puller whenever she makes an appearance for a live song and dance number.