Populations formerly attributed to this species from Barrow Island and the Pilbara are now known to represent Planigale kendricki (Umbrello et al. 2023) and have been removed from the species map. Furthermore, the populations in the Kimberley, Northern Territory and eastern Queensland appear to represent a species complex containing as many as three species (Westerman et al. 2016.).

The Common Planigale is listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of a broad range of habitats, presumed large population, lack of major threats, and because it is unlikely to be declining at nearly the rate required to qualify for listing in a threatened category.

The Common Planigale is endemic to Australia, where it is widely distributed in northern and eastern parts of the country It also occurs on at least 11 islands: Groote Eylandt (2,326 km²), Vanderlin Island (262 km²) (Woinarski et al. 2011), Croker (310 km²) and North Peron (1.7 km²) Islands (ALA) in the Northern Territory, and Russell (18 km²), Bribie (14.8 km²), North Stradbroke (269 km²), Great Keppel (13 km²), K’gari (formerly Fraser) (1,659 km²), and Bentinck (138 km²) Islands, Queensland (Abbott and Burbidge 1995; ALA), and Koolan Island (27 km²) in the Kimberley, Western Australia (Burbidge and Abbott 2017), although taxonomic review may re-classify some of these populations.

Across much of its range it is an abundant species (Burnett 2023). However, there are no estimates of density or population size. A broad-based monitoring program in Kakadu National Park reported a 75% decline in abundance from 2001 to 2009, but the sample size for this species was small and the trend was not statistically significant (Woinarski et al. 2010).

Common Planigales occur in a wide variety of habitats, including sclerophyll and temperate forest, grasslands, marshland, mangroves, and rocky areas. They also occur in gardens at the fringes of urban areas and in some agricultural areas. The diet includes a wide range of invertebrate species and small vertebrates.

Females give birth to a litter of up to 10 young in the east and as many as 12 in the Top End (Burnett 2023).

There appear to be no major threats to this species. Predation by domestic Cats (Felis catus) occurs across its range (other than some islands), and by Red Fox in eastern Australia (Murphy et al. 2019, Stobo-Wilson et al. 2021), but this species is smaller than preferred mammal prey size for these predators (Woolley et al. 2019). The Cane Toad Rhinella marina has spread across almost all of the range of Common Planigale, and may have caused substantial mortality by poisoning, however planigales rapidly learn to avoid toads (Webb et al. 2008) or develop some tolerance to their venom (Llewelyn et al. 2010). Across much of its range in northern Australia, it may be exposed to increasing incidence of severe wildfire, which may degrade habitat quality, cause some direct mortality and expose it to higher risks of predation (Einoder et al. 2023).

Common Planigales are present in many protected areas.