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

The Guianan puffbird was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin based his description on the Tamatias noirs et blancs or Barbu à gros bec, de Cayenne that had been described and illustrated in 1780 by the French polymath the Comte de Buffon.

[3][4] The Guianan puffbird is now placed in the genus Notharchus that was introduced in 1863 by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine.

The specific epithet macrorhynchos is from Ancient Greek makrorrhunkhos and means "long-billed".

[9] The Guianan puffbird is found in extreme eastern Venezuela, the Guianas, and northeastern Brazil north of the Amazon River.

[9] Both sexes excavate the nest cavity, usually in an arboreal termitarium or rotting tree.