[2][3] The swallow-winged puffbird was previously known as simply "swallow-wing" but its current name has been widely accepted since the late twentieth century.

The chin is whitish, the throat grayish, and the breast sooty black fading to gray in its lower part.

C. t. pallida has paler underparts than the nominate, with a distinct white band separating the gray lower breast from the chestnut of the belly.

[5] The swallow-winged puffbird is found throughout the Amazon Basin to the foothills of the Andes in the west and south through central Brazil.

The nominate subspecies is by far the most widespread, occurring in most of Venezuela, south through eastern Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru to northern Bolivia, and east through the Guianas and much of interior Brazil to its northwestern coast.

C. t. brasiliensis is found in the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil approximately from Rio Grande do Norte south to Espírito Santo.

It digs a nest tunnel in flat sandy ground or an earthen bank (including human-made ones such as road cuts).