It is associated in with emergent vegetation at the margins of swamps, rivers and lakes in all types of savannah, grassland, forest edge and bush land, as well as many human-modified habitats, including cultivated land, towns and gardens. It spreads rapidly into recently created waterbodies. It breeds in a wide variety of aquatic habitats, ranging from very small to very large ponds, usually using temporary, but often also in permanent, waterbodies. The eggs are deposited directly into the water.

The distributional limits between this species and other members of the Hyperolius viridiflavus complex, in particular H. nitidulus, H. glandicolor and H. marginatus, are extremely unclear. The distribution map should therefore be regarded as provisional and approximate. As such, the range of the complex as currently understood includes northwestern Ethiopia, extreme southern Sudan, South Sudan, western Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, northwestern Tanzania, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and probably eastern Central African Republic. Central African Republic is currently included in the species' distribution on the map despite the species' uncertain presence there. Due to taxonomic revision of the complex by J.M. Dehling (2015), some records from South Sudan are now attributed to Hyperolius papyri. It occurs from low altitudes up to 2,400 m asl in Ethiopia.

It occurs in several protected areas.