Distribution: The species is spread over whole Europe and European Russia.

Habitat: The aquatic stages of Potamophylax cingulatus live in the headwater of rivulets, in streams and small to medium sized rivers on stony substratum (Botosaneanu & Malicky 1978, Dobson et al. 2000, Arscott et al. 2003, Wallace et al. 2003). This species is widespread and common.

Nutrition: Larvae are shredders, scrapers and carnivorous (Graf et al. 2002).

Adults: Adults are on the wing from May to October (Waringer & Graf 1997).