This species is present in the United Arab Emirates from multiple records: within the Ra's al-Khaimah Emirate it is known from Diftah, southeast of Masafi, at 350 m asl (Miller and Cope 1996, Jongbloed et al. 2003, Rothfels et al. 2012). It also occurs at Jebel Hafeet (Sakkir and Brown 2014). The species is considered to be widespread throughout the Hajar Mountains (Jongbloed et al. 2003). Adiantum capillus-veneris is considered to grow at lower elevations, having not been found above c. 500 m in the Ru'us al-Jibal (Feulner 2011). This species has a sub-cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all continents except the Antarctic, including temperate and tropical Asia, Macaronesia, throughout Africa, including Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands, Australia (where it is apparently considered to be native), New Zealand (where it is considered to be introduced) and the Americas from Canada south to Venezuela. In the Arabian Peninsula this species is known from Saudi Arabia (El-Olayan 2006, Sharawy and Alshammari 2009), Oman (Radcliffe-Smith 1980, Miller and Cope 1996, Pickering and Patzelt 2008, Rothfels et al. 2012), Yemen including Socotra (Kilian et al. 2002, Miller and Morris 2004), Bahrain (Miller and Cope 1996), United Arab Emirates (Miller and Cope 1996, Jongbloed et al. 2003). Although not widely reported, it is widespread throughout mountainous regions of the peninsula, occurring up to 3,000 m asl.