This community is currently found throughout upstate New York with numerous examples in the northwestern Adirondacks and the Tug Hill region. Several scattered examples of dwarf shrub bog are known from eastern Lake Ontario, the northern edge of the High Allegheny Plateau, the Rensselaer Plateau, and the lower Hudson Valley. It is absent from the coastal areas where it is replaced with coastal plain poor fen.

The range is probably widespread throughout Canada and along the northeastern fringe of the United States. The range is estimated to span northeast to Newfoundland, northwest possibly to northwestern Canada, west to Minnesota, southwest to Michigan, and southeast to Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.