The Gold-ringed Tanager is restricted to the western Colombian Andes. In a Montezuma survey, most records were above 1,850 m and at forest edges, with many birds foraging alone. Nest information comes from a small number of observations.
A 2010 Colombian paper identifies this as the only Bangsia tanager with obvious sexual dichromatism in its account: males have a black face, while females have an olive face.
At Montezuma, a survey recorded fruit feeding and found 88% of foraging observations were solitary. A separate 2010 nest observation involved three adults attending a moss-covered nest, but nest observations remain few.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.