Crested owl in Central America and northern South America, where it occurs in Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. It is found in the Amazon Basin except in the north-west basin region with western Guyana, Venezuela, and central-eastern Colombia. The crested owl natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest. They live up to 1000m in altitude, and are found in higher abundance where there is undergrowth and the presence of snags. Crested owls also prefer proximity with water.
British Guiana 1899 arbitration award settling the British Guiana—Venezuela border made reference to the border with Suriname as continuing to the source of the Courantyne River, which it named as the Kutari River. The Netherlands raised a diplomatic protest, claiming that the New River, and not the Kutari, was to be regarded as the source of the Courantyne and the boundary. The British government in 1900 replied that the issue was already settled by the longstanding acceptance of the Kutari as the boundary. In 1962, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, on behalf of Suriname, which had become a constituent country of the