The species occurs in a very wide range of habitats, including heavily modified anthropogenic aquatic habitats, providing there are semi-permanent bodies of water present. It lives in a wide variety of waterbodies, including streams, but tends to avoid waterbodies with predatory fish. It reaches high densities in eutrophic water. This species typically breeds in still, deep water, although there are records of it breeding in flowing water both in native and introduced regions. It has very high reproductive potential and is highly opportunistic, colonizing newly recreated, apparently isolated, waterbodies with ease. It can migrate in large numbers when breeding ponds start to dry up and the weather is wet. Individuals have been found to move 1.5 and 2.0 km overnight in South Africa and France, respectively (Fouquet and Measey 2006).

This species is endemic to southern Africa. It can be found across all of South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi (Stewart 1967, Channing and Griffin 1993). In addition, it can be found in higher parts of Mozambique (including Inhaca Island), Eswatini, Zambia, and southern Botswana (Measey and Channing 2003, Furman et al. 2015, Premechandra et al. 2022). On the margins of its range, it can be found sympatrically with Xenopus gilli, X. poweri, and X. muelleri. It occurs from sea level to 3,300 m asl in Lesotho (Bates and Haacke 2003).

Invasive subpopulations have become established in several parts of the world outside its native range. This species has been introduced to four continents, through escaping or being released from laboratory populations, or as escaped pets ( Fouquet and Measey 2006, Measey et al. 2012, van Sittert and Measey 2016). Some invasive subpopulations have been exterminated (Tinsley et al. 2015), while others are undergoing control. The oldest extant invasive population in California (USA) (McCoid and Fritts 1980) has expanded southward into Baja Mexico (Peralta-García et al. 2014). Other invasions in the USA include Arizona and Washington State (Ojala-Barbour et al. 2021, Anderson et al. 2024). The world's largest invasive subpopulation is in the central region of Chile, now covering an estimated 36,055 km² (Veloso and Navarro 1988, Lobos and Jaksic 2005, Mora et al. 2019). Invasions into Europe include Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom (Measey and Tinsley 1998, Lillo et al. 2005, Fouquet and Measey 2006, Rebelo et al. 2007, Faraone et al. 2008). Several subpopulations have been described in Japan and China (Wang et al. 2019).

It has an extent of occurrence (EOO) of 73,955,034 km².

Conservation Actions In-Place
This species is widespread, not threatened and occurs in many protected areas.