The length is 16 cm with a weight of 25-34 g. They occur mostly in Brazil, and also in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Suriname at an elevation of 700–1000 m. They inhabit grasslands with few trees.

The clutch is 3-4 blue eggs which are speckled around the large end with brown or black spots.

The white-rumped tanager was formally described in 1823 by German naturalist Hinrich Lichtenstein under the binomial name Tanagra ruficollis.

[2] Unfortunately, this combination had been used in 1789 by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin for what is now a subspecies of the Greater Antillean bullfinch with the trinomial Melopyrrha violacea ruficollis.

[3][4][5] In 1831 the French naturalist René Lesson described the white-rumped tanager and introduced the name Cypsnagra (as a subgenus) and the binomial name Tanagra hirundinacea.