In Europe, it is found in a very wide variety of habitats including all types of forest and open landscapes. It is well adapted to many anthropogenic habitats including farmland and suburban and urban areas (Larivière and Pasitschniak-Arts 1996, Stubbe 1999). Red Foxes are adaptable and opportunistic omnivores, with a diet ranging from invertebrates (e.g. earthworms and beetles) to mammals and birds (including game birds), and fruit. They also scavenge in rural areas (e.g. in Europe on deer and sheep carcasses which may be the major food source in upland areas in winter) and in urban areas (on bird tables, compost heaps and refuse) (Sillero-Zubiri et al. 2004). The importance of invertebrate prey is lower at northern latitudes, with corresponding increases in birds and mammals as prey items (Soe et al. 2017).

The Red Fox has an extremely large range. In Europe, it is absent from Iceland, the Arctic islands, and some parts of Russia, and it avoids desert areas. It occurs throughout mainland Europe and some offshore islands. The exceptions are Iceland, Svalbard, Crete, and some of the smaller Mediterranean and North Sea islands (Hall 1981, Ginsberg and Macdonald 1990, Abe 1994, Stubbe 1999, Wilson and Ruff 1999, Abe et al. 2005).

Beyond the European region, the species is distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic Circle to North Africa, Central America, Asiatic steppes and into parts of southern and southeastern Asia.

The species was introduced to Australia in the 1800s from the UK, and elsewhere introduced to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) and to the Isle of Man (UK), although it may subsequently have disappeared there (Sillero-Zubiri et al. 2004). It occurs from sea level to 3,000 m (Stubbe 1999). European subspecies were introduced to the eastern states of the US (e.g. Virginia) in the 17th Century, and Eurasian Red Fox haplotypes are present in some populations (Kasprowicz et al. 2016).

It is present in most protected areas in temperate and subarctic regions, with the exception of some inaccessible islands. It is widely regarded as a pest and is not protected from hunting, although most range states where trapping or hunting occurs have regulated closed versus open seasons and restrictions on methods of capture. In the European Union, trapping methods are regulated under an agreement on international trapping standards that was signed in 1997 (Sillero-Zubiri et al. 2004). Controlling Red Foxes may be necessary where rare species, or threatened populations, are at risk from Red Fox predation (Sillero-Zubiri et al. 2004).

The northerly expansion of Red Fox populations threaten Arctic Fox populations in Fennoscandia (Elmhagen et al. 2017).