The trumpeter finch breeds from the Canary Islands eastwards across North Africa, as far south as Mauritania, Mali and Chad, with isolated populations in Sudan and Ethiopia and Djibouti. In the middle east it is found in Egypt east to Iraq and south in the Arabian Peninsula to Yemen and Oman and north into Turkey and Armenia. In central Asia it ranges from Iran north to Kazakhstan and east to India. It has colonised southern Spain where breeding was first proved in 1971.