Vermicularia spirata occurs in shallow water in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

Its range includes Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico.

[2] The minimum recorded depth for this species is 3 m; the maximum recorded depth is 80 m.[2] Vermicularia spirata is a filter feeder and is a protandrous hermaphrodite; individuals start their adult life as males, at which stage they are free-living, but later become females and attach themselves to various substrates.

[3] Male individuals, being motile, are able to move to the vicinity of the aperture of the sessile females before liberating sperm into the water.

[3] In Bermuda, the endemic hermit crab Calcinus verrillii sometimes uses the vacated tube of Vermicularia spirata as a home, even though it is non-mobile.