It is found in northern Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname and eastern Venezuela.

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest.

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

[a][3][4] Gmelin's account was based on "Le tangara noir de Cayenne" that had been described in 1760 by the French ornithologist Mathurin Brisson from a specimen that had been collected in French Guiana.

The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.