Immatures are duller, with a green head, dark grey upperparts, off-white underparts, and little blue in the plumage.

The golden-hooded tanager's call is a sharp tsit and the song is a tuneless rattled series of tick sounds.

It resides from sea level to 1,500 metres (4,920 ft) altitude in the canopy of dense forests and semi-open areas like clearings, second growth and well-vegetated gardens.

Golden-hooded tanagers occur in pairs, family groups or as part of a mixed-species feeding flock.

The cup nest is built in a tree fork or in a bunch of green bananas, and the normal clutch is two brown-blotched white eggs.