Ophioglossum azoricum is an Atlantic–Mediterranean species native to islands in the northern Atlantic Ocean and adjacent western and southwestern Europe from Greenland, Iceland and the British Isles in the north, to Macaronesia and the Iberian Peninsula in the south.

It also occurs in the Toscana region of Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and east to Cyprus, Turkey and Lebanon.

[1] This species mostly occurs on bare or shortly vegetated ground on exposed coastal clifftops.

An exception to this habitat preference is populations in the New Forest, Hampshire, where plants occur in tightly grazed damp grassland in a non-maritime setting.

[2] In Iceland[3] and Greenland,[4] it is restricted to geothermal areas where higher temperatures allow its survival.