[2] The red-breasted swallow is found over most of Africa south of the Sahara from the Eastern Cape north to northern Namibia and southern Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east, with a disjunct range from Senegal south to northern Angola east to Uganda, southwestern Kenya and northwestern Tanzania.

It builds a closed mud nest with a tubular entrance in a cavity or under bridges and similar structures.

It will use deserted buildings, tree holes or caves, and has benefited from the construction of railway bridges and similar structures.

These birds feed on insects which are almost all caught in the air and the species rarely lands on the ground, rather perching on wires and twigs.

[2] The birds breeding in east Africa are intermediate and have been named as a potential third subspecies Cecropis semirufa neumanni.