Rustic buntings breed from Sweden and Finland across the entire European and Asian boreal zone. Its breeding range is expanding westwards and it now breeds in the Baltic states. It winters winter from Iran to north-east China.

There is one Bailiwick record of a male seen on the slipway at Perelle on 11 June 2006. Amazingly it was seen on the day when the first Bailiwick record of Franklin's Gull occurred.