Small Indian Civet has been recorded in a wide range of habitats, particularly in degraded and fragmented landscapes (including rainforest fragments, tea and coffee plantations; Mudappa et al. 2007), and in less encroached areas, in deciduous forest, bushland, grassland, riverine habitats, marshes (Holden and Neang 2009), and inactive Melaleuca plantations on peat soil in the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam (D.H.A. Willcox pers. comm. 2014). Camera-trapping in Bangladesh found the species across a large array of suitable habitat, from mangrove to semi-evergreen, evergreen and deciduous forest to mixed bamboo vegetation and shrubs (Feeroz et al. 2011, 2012, Hasan Rahman pers. comm. 2014, Abu Abdullay Diyan pers. comm. 2014). It occurs around human habitation in towns and villages in North-east India (Choudhury 2013) but in southern India it is less common in such areas than is Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus (D. Mudappa pers. comm. 2014). Records certainly from deep within closed-canopy evergreen forest are rare (but do occur; e.g. Naniwadekar et al. 2013), both in India and South-east Asia (Duckworth 1997; Than Zaw et al.2008; Mudappa 2002, 2013; Chutipong et al. 2014). Although coarse GIS analysis of record locations against habitat can suggest wide occurrence in evergreen forest, a detailed check of exact record locations in Thailand in evergreen forest biomes showed that they were mostly outside forest, in adjacent cleared or naturally open areas; those within evergreen forest were in small patches and strips amid deciduous or degraded habitat, such as riverine gallery forest, or were in the late dry season when adjoining deciduous forest had been heavily burnt (Chutipong et al. 2014). Similarly, records in Virachey National Park, northern Cambodia (WWF unpublished data), which at a landscape scale looks like a massive block of semi-evergreen forest/evergreen forest, are clearly associated with small pockets of grassland and somewhat open-canopy deciduous forest (R.J. Timmins pers. comm. 2014). Finally, in the Western Ghats, India, it was more frequent in rainforest fragments than in the relatively undisturbed, large, contiguous tract of rainforest in Kalakad–Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (Mudappa et al. 2007). By contrast, it is evidently widespread in little-encroached deciduous forests (e.g., Pillay 2009, Chutipong et al. 2014, Gray et al. 2014) and in some semi-evergreen forests (e.g. Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, India; Kalle et al. 2013). It might be one of few civets that is not forest-dependent at some level: where hunting levels are low, it is common in various areas almost entirely deforested, notably Hong Kong (Pei et al. 2002, Suen 2002) and there are many other records from such areas - mindful of the very little survey that occurs within them - elsewhere in its range (e.g., Lekagul and McNeely 1977, Rode-Margono et al. 2014).

This species is nocturnal and is active mostly on the ground (Mudappa 2002). An adult male radio-tracked in Thailand had a home range of 3.1 km² (Rabinowitz, 1991). In Thailand, it may live in drains, outhouses, and roofs, eating rats, mice, birds, snakes, fruit, roots, and carrion (Lekagul and McNeely 1977). It has litters of 3-5, and the life-span (in captivity) is 8-9 years (Lekagul and McNeely 1977). Wang and Fuller (2001) studied this species in a rural agricultural area near the village of Taohong in northern Jiangxi Province, south-eastern China, from April 1993 to November 1994. Analysis of faeces between June 1992 and November 1994 found that this species ate mostly mammals, with moderate amounts of insects and fruits.

Small Indian Civet occurs in Sri Lanka, Pakistan (Indus valley eastwards), most of India (recently confirmed to extend north of the Pir Pinjal, Kashmir), Nepal, south and central China (north to Sichuan and the lower Yangtze, including Hainan and Hong Kong), Taiwan province of China, Bangladesh (North-east, South-east and in the Sundarbans), mainland South-east Asia (almost throughout) and various islands of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Bali, Bawean, Bintan, Kangean, Lombok, Panaitan, and Sumbawa; it should not be assumed to be native to those lying east of Bali) (Roberts 1997, Wang 2003, Than Zaw et al. 2008, Chen et al. 2009, Charoo et al. 2010, Lau et al. 2010, Jennings and Veron 2011, Choudhury 2013, Mudappa 2013, Chutipong et al. 2014, S. Ratnayeke pers. comm. 2007, Hasan Rahman pers. comm. 2014).

Its origin and current status on Sumatra is unclear: the species is known on the island only from a few records from North Sumatra (named V. malaccensis atchinensis Sody, 1931) and there are no published records from southern Sumatra (although Corbet and Hill [1992] included all of Sumatra in the species' distribution), nor was it found in a trade survey of civets at Medan (Shepherd 2008). This queries its persistence there, given levels of trade in civets in Medan, and the proportion of civets in similar trade in neighbouring Java that are Small Indian Civets (Nijman et al. 2014). It is implausible that it could have been hunted out of Sumatra (given its persistence in today's heavily hunted landscapes of northern South-east Asia and southern China), suggesting the strong possibility that earlier records from Sumatra were of imports. It has been stated to occur in Singapore but there is no evidence of this and it is implausible that it is present but overlooked (Chua et al. 2012). It has been introduced to Madagascar and the Comoros (Goodman 2012), Socotra (Yemen; Pocock 1939) and Unguja, Pemba and Mafia Islands of Tanzania (Pakenham 1984, Kock and Stanley 2009). The current distribution of these introduced populations is poorly known (but is of no significance to the species's conservation).

It occurs from sea-level to 2,500 m (North-east India; Choudhury 2013).

This species is totally protected in Myanmar under the Wildlife Act of 1994 (Su Su 2005) and in Bangladesh under the Wildlife Act 2012 (Hasan Rahman pers. comm. 2015). It is protected in Thailand, with captive breeding allowed (Chutipong et al. 2014). It is listed on Category II of the China Wildlife Protection Law (1988) (Li et al. 2000) and as ‘Vulnerable’ in the China Red List (Wang and Xie 2004). It is listed on CITES Appendix III by India. It has been recorded in many protected areas across its range. There is no harvest management plan; while this is probably not problematic at present, if agricultural intensification does reduce habitat suitability and if trade demand for 'civet' remains high, because this is a species living primarily in areas with some to heavy human use, it is possible that off-take might drive declines in the future and that a harvest management plan (or captive breeding to supply 'civet' production units) would be warranted.