Sick's swift was formally described in 1907 by the Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr from specimens collected in the Santiago del Estero Province of northern Argentina.

Hellmayr considered it to be a subspecies of the ashy-tailed swift and coined the trinomial name Chaetura andrei meridionalis.

It breeds in south-eastern Brazil and adjacent parts of Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, but is believed to spend the Austral winter further north in the Amazon basin, northern South America and Panama.

Its exact wintering range is, however, poorly known due to the highly complex matter of field identification of a number of very similar Chaetura swifts found in central and northern South America.

It is generally common, but confirmed records outside its breeding range (where it is the only large Chaetura swift, and therefore relatively easy to identify) are infrequent.

It often flies low over roads or clearings in the morning or evening, rising high above the forest, often with other swifts, in the middle of the day.