The habitable zone of 40 Eridani A, where a planet could exist with liquid water, is near 0.68 AU from A. At this distance a planet would complete a revolution in 223 Earth days (according to the third of Kepler's laws) and 40 Eridani A would appear nearly 20% wider than the Sun does on Earth. An observer on a planet in the 40 Eridani A system would see the B/C pair as unusually bright (magnitudes -8 and -6) white and reddish-orange stars in the night sky.

It is unlikely that habitable planets exist around 40 Eridani B because they would have been sterilized by its evolution into a white dwarf. As for 40 Eridani C, it is prone to flares, which cause large momentary increases in the emission of X-rays as well as visible light. This would be lethal to Earth-type life on planets near the flare star.