Elisa Badenes was born in Valencia, Spain. She attended the Conservatorio Profesional de Danza de Valencia. At the Prix de Lausanne in 2008 she won a scholarship for the Royal Ballet School from which she graduated one year later. In the 2009 Elisa Badenes joined the Stuttgart Ballet and was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2013.

Her repertory includes a wide range of leading roles including Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Tatiana in Onegin and Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew (all by John Cranko), the title role in Giselle (after Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa), Lise in La Fille mal gardée (Frederick Ashton), Kitri in Don Quixote (Maximiliano Guerra after Petipa), Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty (Marcia Haydée after Petipa), Marguerite Gautier in The Lady of the Camellias, the title role in Anna Karenina, Desdemona in Othello and Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire (all John Neumeier), Mary Vetsera in Mayerling (Kenneth MacMillan), Effi in La Sylphide (Peter Schaufuss after August Bournonville) and the solo The Dying Swan (after Michel Fokine). In addition, she has danced solo roles in ballets by George Balanchine, John Cranko, Edward Clug, Jorma Elo, William Forsythe, Johan Inger, Jiří Kylián, Kenneth MacMillan, Hans van Manen, Sasha Riva & Simone Repele, and Jerome Robbins.

Choreographers such as Fabio Adorisio, Mauro Bigonzetti, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, David Dawson, Marco Goecke, Shaked Heller, Johan Inger, Katarzyna Kozielska, Douglas Lee, Wayne McGregor, Christian Spuck, Louis Stiens and Demis Volpi have created roles for her. In 2016 Demis Volpi created the title role in his Salome for her and in 2022 Edward Clug created the leading role of Clara in The Nutcracker for her.

Elisa Badenes has received several honors and prizes including the Gold medal of the Youth American Grand Prix, the Audience Choice Award of the Erik Bruhn Competition in Toronto in 2011 and the German Dance Prize Future in 2015. In 2023 she was awarded 'Dancer of the Year' by Dance Europe magazine.

In December 2023 she was awarded the national title of Kammertänzerin.