The Chestnut-backed Laughingthrush lives in thickets and woodland edges from northeastern India into northern Myanmar, where it searches for insects near the ground. Adults have a grey crown and a rufous nape.
Adults have a grey crown, broad whitish ear-coverts, and a black stripe across the face and throat. The nape and upper mantle are rufous to chestnut.
It uses thickets, secondary growth, tall grass, bamboo, and the edges of broadleaf evergreen forest. It searches for insects on the ground among dense vegetation.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.