It is found in the West Indies, in parts of Central America, and on islands just off the northern South American coast.

[2][3] In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Caribbean elaenia in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Martinique.

He used the French name Le gobe-mouche hupé de la Martinique and the Latin Muscicapa Martinicana cristata.

[4] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[5] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson including the Caribbean elaenia.

[5] Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Muscicapa martinica and cited Brisson's work.

[9] The subspecies of the Caribbean elaenia are found thus:[9][10][11][12][13][14][excessive citations] (1) A vagrant photographed and audio recorded in northwestern Florida, though not definitively, is possibly an individual of E. m.

It is found in the canopy and on the edges of humid evergreen forest, in deciduous woodland, scrublands, parks and gardens, open land with a scattering of trees and shrubs, and coastally in mangroves.

Its nest is "a flimsy shallow cup" made of twigs, typically placed in a tree or shrub up to about 9 m (30 ft) above the ground.

[1] It is considered "generally common and widespread" in most of its range though rare in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina.