Golden Palm Civet is found in lowland rain forest, evergreen mountain forests (including cloud forest and short-stature forests; U. Hettige pers. comm. 2015), dense monsoon forest (e.g., at Wilpattu), and in the dry zone generally (Groves et al. 2009). Whether it occurs in the southern and eastern thorn scrub forests in the more arid parts of the dry zone is unclear; these have received minimal survey and research effort for nocturnal mammals (G. de Silva Wijeyeratne pers. comm. 2015); U. Hettige (pers. comm. 2015) has not seen it in such habitat.

It occurs in old-growth forest, but also widely outside it, in degraded, fragmented and secondary areas. Many records in non-forest habitats are close to old-growth forest, but J. Woolgar (pers. comm. 2015) has recorded it in five localities outside protected areas, at least one of which (in a very small area of fragmented forest near busy roads, about an hour's drive from the international airport) was over 10 km from old-growth forest. His other sighting localities included predominantly agricultural landscapes and areas in proximity to human settlement. It has also been recorded on or among houses, close to forest, at the northern side of Knuckles World Heritage Nature Reserve, at Pitawala Patana (N. Weerasinghe pers. comm. 2015). At the busy archaeological site of Sigiriya, G. de Silva Wijeyeratne (pers. comm. 2015) observed one at dusk above the moat and road beside it; by day this area is busy with people and vehicles. It readily uses home gardens where there are tall trees (U. Hettige pers. comm. 2015), but does not seem to have been recorded in urban areas; on Sri Lanka, these areas are occupied by the related Common Palm Civet P. hermaphroditus (Schreiber et al. 1989, G. de Silva Wijeyeratne pers. comm. 2015, P. Fernando pers. comm. 2015). Whether populations could survive in the long term in landscapes where forest is confined to small, secondary patches is not clear, even though such areas are readily used in today's landscape. As a close evolutionary relative of Brown Palm Civet P. jerdoni (Veron et al. 2015), it is plausible that Golden Palm Civet will be found to occur widely in forest that has long been fragmented, but not to survive total deforestation.

Like Brown Palm Civet, it is largely arboreal and nocturnal; its diet consists of berries and larger fruits, invertebrates, and a wide range of small vertebrates (Pocock 1939, Yapa and Ratnavira 2013). Generally solitary, aggregations can occur at fruiting trees (Yapa and Ratnavira 2013). It is considerably more arboreal than is Common Palm Civet and at two localities animals were watched moving along telephone wires (J. Woolgar pers. comm. 2015).

Golden Palm Civet is endemic to Sri Lanka (e.g. Groves et al. 2009). Formerly considered likely to have a small range defined by the persistence of large tracts of natural habitat (e.g. Schreiber et al. 1989), the recently collected skulls in the National Museum and Colombo University collections reported by Groves et al. (2009), and other recent records, suggest a wide range that includes almost the whole country, covering at least 40,000 km². Yapa and Ratnavira (2013) considered Golden Palm Civet to comprise four species each with limited distribution. Combining these ranges, the single species seems to be more or less contiguous in its distribution across wet, intermediate and dry zones, with an isolated population in Wilpattu National Park. Its range has doubtless been under-reported because it is nocturnal and significantly arboreal, the attributes which led to significant underestimation of the range and abundance of its close relative Brown Palm Civet P. jerdoni (Rajamani et al. 2002, Bhosale et al. 2013). The number of forest fragments in which the species occurs, although not quantified, probably exceeds 50 (R. Pethiyagoda pers. comm. 2015).

The species occurs from sea level to high-elevation tropical montane cloud forest in the Central and Knuckles hills, to at least 2,000 m (Groves et al. 2009).

Golden Palm Civet occurs both inside various protected areas and widely outside them (Groves et al. 2009, G. de Silva Wijeyeratne pers. comm. 2015, J. Woolgar  pers. comm. 2015). The maintenance of these protected areas, which hold many far more threatened species than this civet, is likely to secure its long-term future irrespective of the extent to which it can persist in wholly degraded, fragmented, secondary and/or deforested landscapes. Thus, whilst Schreiber et al. (1989) recommended research into the species’s ecological and conservation requirements to ascertain why it is less successful in adapting to changes of its habitat than is its congener P. hermaphroditus, this is not a priority. Recent records and a comparison with the closely related Brown Palm Civet suggest that while such information would be interesting, Golden Palm Civet may well be found to cope well with fragmentation and even quite heavy degradation, and not need large blocks of old-growth forest. It would thus not be significantly threatened by current habitat trends in Sri Lanka. Secondary forest is expanding rapidly in parts of Sri Lanka, although its value to Golden Palm Civet remains unknown (R. Pethiyagoda pers. comm. 2015). It is even less likely that reduction of hunting pressure should be a conservation focus for the species.

Sinharaja Forest, with many records of the species, is now a well-protected UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Past calls for the establishment of a breeding colony in captivity, while perhaps sensibly precautionary in the then contemporary state of knowledge, now lack conservation justification, given the species’s wide distribution and evident abundance.

The recent national Red List for Sri Lanka (MoE 2012) considered Golden Palm Civet as three species and categorised each as Endangered or Critically Endangered. However, following the recent taxonomic review of Veron et al. (2015), there is no reason to regard these forms as species or as taxa of any rank; under this taxonomic view separate Red List categorisations are not warranted.

Golden Palm Civet benefits from strict legal protection under Sri Lanka’s Fauna & Flora Protection Ordinance (revised 2009), with sentences of up to five years prescribed for the capture or killing of an individual.