The African sheath-tailed bat is found in much of east and eastern-central Africa, with an isolated record from central Mozambique. It is also found in west Africa, with records from Guinea and Guinea Bissau, northern Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and western Nigeria. There is also a small distribution in western Angola. This species was recently discovered in Madagascar (Goodman et al. 2005) and is known only from the Ankarana Special Reserve in the north of the island and the Namoroka National Park in the west.