We study the Besov regularity as well as linear and nonlinear approximation of random functions on bounded Lipschitz domains in ℝ ^d. The random functions are given either (i) explicitly in terms of a wavelet expansion or (ii) as the solution of a Poisson equation with a right-hand side in terms of a wavelet expansion. In the case (ii) we derive an adaptive wavelet algorithm that achieves the nonlinear approximation rate at a computational cost that is proportional to the degrees of freedom. These results are matched by computational experiments.