Peirosauridae was named by Gasparini (1982). It was considered monophyletic by Larsson and Sues (2007) and Turner and Sertich (2010).

It was reranked as the unranked clade Peirosauridae by Geroto and Bertini (2019) and Nicholl et al. (2021).

It was assigned to Crocodilomorphi by Gasparini et al. (1991); to Metasuchia by Sereno et al. (2001); to Peirosauroidea by Carvalho et al. (2004); to Crocodyliformes by Gasparini et al. (2006); to Mesoeucrocodylia by Turner (2006), Sertich and O'Connor (2014) and Lamanna et al. (2019); to Sebecia by Larsson and Sues (2007) and Geroto and Bertini (2019); to Notosuchia by Turner and Sertich (2010), Pol et al. (2012), Pol et al. (2014), Barrios et al. (2016), Nicholl et al. (2021) and Paulina-Carabajal et al. (2021); and to Crocodylomorpha by Agnolín et al. (2023).