Frank Moraes was born in Bombay in 1907, the son of a Catholic Goan civil engineer. From 1927 to 1934 he read history at Oxford University as a member of St Catherine's Society. He was active in student politics and was elected President of the Oxford Majlis and London Indian Majlis (Indian Students' Association) and of the Indian Students' Union in England. Moraes was affected by events such as the General Strike and the economic depression of the late 1920s. He was the editor of an Oxford student newspaper, Bharat. Later he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London, and was called to the Bar.

He returned to India in 1934 and practised as a barrister for a few months. Bored with his profession, he wrote several articles for a subsidiary newspaper of The Times of India. In 1936 he joined the staff of The Times of India as a journalist and in 1938 he was promoted to junior assistant editor. From 1942 to 1945 he toured Burma and China as the newspaper's war correspondent.

Moraes married in 1937. He and his wife Beryl had a son Francis (Dom), who became a well-known poet in the 1960s. During the 1940s Beryl Moraes became ill and was confined thereafter to mental institutions. From 1946 to 1949 Francis Moraes lived in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and worked as editor of The Times Ceylon and The Morning Standard. He also served as Indian correspondent for several British newspapers. In 1950 he returned to The Times of India and became its first Indian editor. In 1957 he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Goenka family newspaper, the Indian Express (formerly the Morning Standard). He also wrote articles for various newspapers outside India. Occasionally he broadcast for the BBC and Radio Australia. In December 1972 he retired from the Indian Express. He settled in London in 1973 and died the following year.