In this paper we give a global characterisation of classes of ultradi_erentiable functions and corresponding ultradistributions on a compact manifold X. The characterisation is given in terms of the eigenfunction expansion of an elliptic operator on X. This extends the result for analytic functions on compact manifold by Seeley [See69], and the characterisation of Gevrey functions and Gevrey ultradistributions on compact Lie groups and homogeneous spaces by the authors.