Within the United Arab Emirates, this species is widespread in the sandy deserts, gravel plains and in the mountainous regions at lower elevations, and is also found on many of the islands (Gardner 2013, Burriel-Carranza et al. in press). It occurs from sea level to 500 m asl. It is frequently encountered in urban and disturbed environments. The species is considered native to the Arabian Peninsula.This species is distributed (Carranza and Arnold 2006, Sindaco and Jeremäenko 2008) through Somalia (where it is found in nearly all regions; Lanza 1990), in Eritrea and Djibouti (Ineich 2001), along the Red Sea coast of Sudan and southern Egypt (north to Quseir; Baha El Din 2001), much of the Arabian Peninsula (and also on Socotra Island) (Cogä'lniceanu et al. 2013), east to Iran (Anderson 1999) and Pakistan (Baha El Din 2005). It is a coastal species generally found at or close to sea level, however, inland records exist for Ethiopia and extreme northeastern Kenya (Spawls et al. 2002, Largen and Spawls 2006, 2010). It has possibly been introduced to some of the port cities of Iran and Pakistan (T. Papenfuss pers. comm. 2008). It is found in coastal areas around the Red Sea, Hadhramaut (Yemen; Šmíd et al. 2015), and the southern Arabian littoral zone as far as the eastern United Arab Emirates, southern Iran and Pakistan (Arnold 1980). A record from Zanzibar represents an introduced population of Hemidactylus puccionii.