It breeds from southernmost Texas and northwest Mexico (Sonora) south through Central America to northern Argentina, including Trinidad and Tobago.

[2] It is 4.3 in (11 cm) long and has mainly blue-grey upperparts, with a greenish back patch and two white wing bars.

The immature tropical parula is dull-plumaged, lacks the wing bars, and has a grey band on the breast.

Setophaga pitiayumi has occasionally been lumped with the closely related northern parula (S. americana) as a single species.

In addition, a partially leucistic tropical parula female was seen in 2005, at Reserva Buenaventura in El Oro Province, Ecuador.

They may be seen to attend mixed-species feeding flocks, in some locations (e.g. in the Serra de Paranapiacaba) commonly, but often just coincidentally.