She was the eighth child of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Born at the Hofburg Imperial Palace, she was raised in the Habsburg Viennese court in winter and at Schönbrunn and Laxenburg in summer. As her siblings, she was regularly interviewed by her mother. Maria Amalia, as her sisters, was mainly raised to be an ideal consort and taught the arts and how to be obedient, dutiful and representative. Because of her age and the fact that the siblings were raised separated by gender, she was in practice raised as an only child. She did not have a good relationship with her mother: in fact, of all her daughters, Maria Theresa was said to have the worse relationship with Amalia. When she debuted as an adult in the society life in Vienna, she made a success because of her beauty.

One of her paintings, St. Therese and the child Jesus, still exists today in a private collection.

Against her will, Amalia was married to Ferdinand of Parma (1751–1802). The marriage was supported by the future Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, whose first beloved wife had been Ferdinand's sister, Princess Isabella of Parma. The Archduchess's marriage to the Duke of Parma was part of a complicated series of contracts that married off Maria Theresa's daughters to the King of Naples and Sicily and the Dauphin of France. All three sons-in-law were members of the House of Bourbon.

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