Native to East Asia, it is found throughout China, Japan (except Hokkaidō), Korea, and Taiwan, and has been spreading across North America since the 2010s.

The adult female individual has stripes of yellow and dark blue, with red toward the rear of the abdomen.

[6][7] Scientists confirmed the first known occurrence of T. clavata in North America in 2014,[8] and as of October 2022, the spider's range spans at least 120,000 km2 (46,000 sq mi), occurring across the US states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, with additional reports in Alabama, Maryland, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Its pattern of spread suggests it is primarily driven by natural dispersal mechanisms, such as ballooning, though human-mediated transport cannot be discounted.

[9][8][10][11][12] The Joro spider has been spotted in many eastern US states, including Alabama, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, and West Virginia, and it appeared in the southern portions of New York and neighboring states sometime in the summer of 2024.

[13][14] The spiders "seem to be OK with living in a city", according to University of Georgia researcher Andy Davis, who added that he has seen them on streetlamps and telephone poles.

It has been observed catching the brown marmorated stink bug (Halymorpha halys), an invasive species that native spiders have not been known to eat, and there is hope that the impact of the species will be positive due to its harmless nature and consumption of primarily invasive or nuisance insects.