His wife is radio host, New Zealand Herald Focus co-host and Sky Sport sidelines reporter Laura McGoldrick, while his mother-in-law, Leanne McGoldrick is Martin's agent, and a family friend of Martin Crowe, as Crowe became a mentor to Guptill and Ross Taylor. He attended Kelston Primary and Kelston Boys before transferring to Avondale College. His cousin is his Auckland Aces teammate, Michael Guptill-Bunce.

Guptill attended Avondale College and played in the school's 1st XI cricket team. He was also a prefect in his final year.

Martin Guptill has only two toes in his left foot. At the age of 13, Guptill was involved in a forklift accident and unfortunately lost three toes. (This fact was revealed to the world by provincial teammate Scott Styris whilst Styris was commentating on Guptill's ODI debut. This has since earned Guptill the nickname "Two Toes" within the Black Caps team).

Guptill first represented New Zealand in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup held in Sri Lanka in 2006.

In domestic cricket, he plays for Auckland Aces (he plays in Auckland's club cricket competition for Suburbs New Lynn). He made his first-class debut in March 2006, scoring a 4-ball duck in the first innings, and 99 in the second. In January 2011 it was announced that Guptill had signed for Derbyshire in England. He was to take over from Australian player Usman Khawaja for the second half of the County Championship & CB40 season. In 2016, he was selected to represent Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League following the early departure of Lendl Simmons due to an injury. He has been part of Kings XI Punjab from 2017.

He made his One Day International debut for New Zealand on 10 January 2009 against the West Indies in Auckland, becoming t