Extreme eastern Mongolia east to north-eastern China (north-eastern Nei Mongol, Heilongjiang) and extreme south-eastern Russia (L Khanka region of Ussuriland).
 
Population
Estimated population is unknown (2012) and decreasing.
Paradoxornis heudei (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) was split by Stepanyan (1998) into Reed Parrotbill (Paradoxornis heudei) and Northern Parrotbill (Paradoxornis polivanovi) but the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group prefer to follow the treatment of Penhallurick and Robson (2009) who resist this split.
Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Reed Parrotbill (Paradoxornis heudei).