Palm warblers breed in open coniferous bogs and edge east of the Continental Divide, across Canada and the northeastern United States.

These birds migrate to the southeastern United States, the Yucatán Peninsula, islands of the Caribbean, and eastern Nicaragua south to Panama to winter.

[3] They are one of the earlier migrants to return to their breeding grounds in the spring, often completing their migration almost two months before most other warblers.

[4] Every year since 1900 the palm warbler has been observed during Christmas Bird Count activities in Massachusetts, and consistently since 1958 in Nova Scotia.

[8] Kirtland's, prairie, and palm warblers are the only Setophaga species that incessantly bob their tails.