It is distinguished by the yellow patches on its dusky green wings, marking an otherwise dark bluish and gray body.

The juvenile lacks this color, but has an olive-green head and upper back.

Like other members of the genus Thraupis, it is a species of open humid and mesic woodland.

The yellow-winged tanager is found on the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coasts from the states of Veracruz and the extreme south of San Luis Potosi in Mexico through the Yucatán Peninsula to Nicaragua, and on the Pacific coast from the Mexican state of Chiapas to Honduras.

Since October 2010, it has been recorded in Los Chiles, northern Costa Rica.