Haplosporidians are rhizarian parasites of mostly marine invertebrates. They include the causative agents of diseases of commercially important molluscs, including MSX disease in oysters. Despite their importance for food security, their diversity and distributions are poorly known. We used a combination of group-specific PCR primers to probe environmental DNA samples from planktonic and benthic environments in Europe, South Africa and Panama. This revealed several highly distinct novel clades, novel lineages within known clades and seasonal (spring vs autumn) and habitat-related (brackish vs littoral) variation in assemblage composition. High frequencies of haplosporidian lineages in the water column provide the first evidence for life cycles involving planktonic hosts, host-free stages or both. The general absence of haplosporidian lineages from all large online sequence data sets emphasises the importance of lineage-specific approaches for studying these highly divergent and diverse lineages. Combined with host-based field surveys, environmental sampling for pathogens will enhance future detection of known and novel pathogens and the assessment of disease risk.