It is found on many Caribbean islands, from the Bahamas in the north to the Grenadines in the south, with an isolated subspecies on Bonaire.

[3][4] While this is not a migratory bird, considerable gene flow between populations appears to have taken place at least until fairly recently in its evolutionary history.

When exactly the pearly-eyed thrasher lineage diverged from its relatives cannot be said with reasonable certainty, as no fossils are known and the standard molecular clock model cannot be applied to the Mimidae, as mutation rates seem to have varied over time.

[3] The pearly-eyed thrasher has a somewhat disjunct distribution throughout the West Indies: it is found in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos islands, the Dominican Republic's Isla Beata, many of the Lesser Antilles (except Barbados and Grenada, where it is extirpated), and Bonaire.

[6] The subspecies M. f. bonairensis was formerly found on La Horquilla, one of the Hermanos Islands off the north coast of Venezuela, but it is now believed to be extirpated from there, having last been reported in 1908.