Abstract The bluegrass webworm moth Parapediasia teterrella (Zincken, 1821) is a notorious pest that is native to North America. However, it has invaded East Asia and has caused serious economic losses in China and Japan. The objective of this paper is to analyse the potential geographic distribution of P. teterrella in East Asia with MaxEnt, using predictor variables related to temperature and precipitation. It is suggested that this species has potential to establish in Southeast China, most areas of Jeollanam-do, eastern coastal region of South Korea, and most areas of Japan. Furthermore, we applied the Jackknife test to evaluate the significance of climatic variables in modelling the potential distribution of P. teterrella. The result indicates that annual mean temperature (Bio1), mean temperature of the coldest quarter (Bio11) and precipitation of the coldest quarter (Bio19) mainly affect its geographical distribution. A map showing the potential distribution of P. teterrella in East Asia is provided, and morphological diagnosis of the species is also given.