This nocturnal species can be found on boulders, beneath rocks or rotting logs, and on trees, but it is most commonly found on buildings. This species is found in both villages and large urban areas; it is usually found close to electric lights at dusk (Malkmus 2002). In addition, this species occurs in a diverse range of natural habitats, including rain forests, savannas, and semiarid regions (Henkel and Schmidt 1995).

This species is found worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions. It is native to southern and southeast Asia and the Indo-Australian Archipelago. This species also has a patchy distribution in the Pacific, which includes many regions of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. It also occurs in Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Philippines (most or all islands). In China it occurs throughout southern China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao (J.H. Yang pers. comm. 2018).

In South Asia it has been widely reported, including Meghamalai, Tamil Nadu (Bhupathy and Sathishkumar 2013), Barail Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam (Das et al. 2009),  Ponmudi, Kerala, South India (Inger et al. 1984), Morankanda-Mukalana secondary forest patch in Sri Lanka (Jayaneththi 2015), Monaragala District, Sril Lanka (Karunarathna and Amarasinghe 2011), Mizoram (Lalremsanga et al. 2010), Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh (Mahony and Reza 2007), Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh (Mahony et al. 2009), Jammu City (Manhas et al. 2016), Kerala (Palot 2015), Gujarat (Patel et al. 2016), Guwahati, Assam (Purkayastha et al. 2011), Chembarambakkam Lake, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Tsetan and Ramanibai 2011), and Vidyanagari, Mumbai, Maharashtra (Upadhye et al. 2012).  Nicobar Islands (Car Nicobar, Chowra, Tarasa, Bompoka, Tillanchong, Katchall, Camora, Nancowry, Trinkat, Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar, Kondul, Pilo Milo) (Vijayakumar 2005)

This species has been transported widely by humans: introduced populations exist in Australia, eastern Africa (where its distribution is poorly-documented following the resurrection of Hemidactylus fragilis, but is known to include mesic areas of southern Somalia and it has also been reported from Djibouti and coastal Kenya - Mazuch et al. 2016, Spawls et al. 2018), islands of the Indian Ocean, Mexico (Loreto, La Paz, Boca de la Sierra and San Jose del Cabo, in Baja California Sur), and the United States (including Hawaii) (Bauer and Henle 1994, Kraus 2009). In the Caribbean it has been reported in Hispaniola. In South America, this species is known from northwestern Venezuela (including Isla de Margarita off the Caribbean coast), Colombia (where it is widely distributed), and Ecuador (Rivas et al. 2005, Caicedo-Portilla and Dulcey-Cala 2011). This species generally occurs at elevations below 1,600 m asl, but there is a record at 2,600 m in Colombia (Caicedo-Portilla and Dulcey-Cala 2011).

In Australia, it occurs among the coast in north and east of Australia, all the way south toward Sydney (G. Gillespie pers. comm. 2019).

There are no known species-specific conservation measures in place for this species, but in places its distribution coincides with protected areas. No conservation measures are required.

McKeown, Sean. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians in the Hawaiian Islands. Diamond Head Publishing Company, 1996