Pontoporiidae was named by Gray (1870). It is extant. It was considered monophyletic by Gibson and Geisler (2009).

It was synonymized subjectively with Iniidae by Mead and Brownell (2005).

It was assigned to Delphinoidea by Gray (1871); to Odontocete by Scott (1873); to Delphinoidea by Gray (1870), McKenna and Bell (1997); to Platanistoidea by Kasuya (1973), Barnes (1984), Barnes et al. (1985), Barnes (1985), Cozzuol (1985), Vidal (1991), Geisler and Sanders (2003); to Odontoceti by Carroll (1988), Benton (1993), Fordyce and Barnes (1994), Fordyce et al. (1995), Rice (1998), Bergqvist et al. (1999), Rice (2002), Whitmore and Kaltenbach (2008); to Delphinida by Uhen et al. (2008), Gibson and Geisler (2009); to Odontoceti by Canto et al. (2010); and to Inioidea by Muizon (1984), de Muizon (1988), Fordyce and de Muizon (2001), Gingerich (2005), Lambert and Post (2005), Bianucci and Landini (2007), Pyenson and Hoch (2007), Foekens (2008), Rice (2009), Cozzuol (2010), Bianucci et al. (2011), Geisler et al. (2011), Marx et al. (2016), Post et al. (2017), Berta (2017), Lambert et al. (2021), Godfrey and Lambert (2023).