It is found in Mauritius and Réunion, and the populations on the two islands have recently been confirmed to differ subspecifically.

[2] Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland, subtropical or tropical high-altitude grassland, caves, arable land, and heavily degraded former forest.

The Mascarene swiftlet was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3] Gmelin based his description on "La petite hirondelle noire à croupion gris" that had been described in 1779 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon from a specimen collected on the "Île de France" (Mauritius) in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.

The specific epithet francicus signifies the "Île de France", the type locality.