The Redpoll is distributed across much of the northern hemisphere with the most northerly populations moving south during the winter. See the distribution map at Birdlife International.

Some authorities treat Lesser Redpoll Acanthis flammea cabaret as a species in its own right since it was observed that the two subspecies in Europe did not hybridise. The reference for this is "The taxonomic status of Lesser Redpoll" 2001 by Alan Knox et al. in British Birds, 94: 260-267. However the HBW and Birdlife International checklist states that this split "has been shown to represent arbitrary divisions of a continuum of morphological characters as reflected in the genetic uniformity of all populations throughout its range".