It establishes in autumn and grows through winter, flowering in spring to early summer. It grows 10 millimetres in diameter, developing yellow flowers with five petals, and later spreading seeds from the centre of the flower before dying.

As with Creeping Buttercup and Giant Buttercup, the leaves of Hairy Buttercup tend to split into three leaflets. Hairy Buttercup has no stolons, which is one way of telling it apart from Creeping Buttercup. The easiest way to distinguish these buttercups apart is when they are flowering. Hairy Buttercup is the only one of the three that has sepals (the structures are like little petals but beneath the petals) that point downwards once the flower has opened up. The sepals in Creeping Buttercup and Giant Buttercup remain parallel to the petals.