Albertosaurus was named by Osborn (1905). It is the type genus of Albertosaurinae. It was considered monophyletic by Currie (2000).

It was synonymized subjectively with Aublysodon by Romer (1956) and Parsch (1963); it was synonymized subjectively with Deinodon by Tatarinov (1964).

It was assigned to Theropoda by Osborn (1905); to Megalosaurinidae by Huene (1909); to Coeluridae by von Zittel (1911); to Aublysodontinae by Nopcsa (1928); to Deinodontinae by Matthew and Brown (1922) and Hay (1930); to Theropoda by Parks (1935); to Carnosauria by Kuhn (1939); to Deinodontidae by Brown (1914), Russell (1930), Stromer (1934) and Gilmore (1946); to Dinodontidae by Huene (1926), Huene (1927) and Colbert (1964); to Coelurosauria by Pérez-Moreno et al. (1994); to Tyrannosaurinae by Paul (1988), Holtz (1997), Currie (2000) and Holtz (2001); to Albertosaurinae by Currie (2003), Currie et al. (2003) and Holtz (2004); and to Tyrannosauridae by Walker (1964), Romer (1966), Russell and Chamney (1967), Steel (1970), Russell (1970), Coulton (1976), Kurzanov (1976), Lawson (1976), Molnar (1978), Baird and Horner (1979), Molnar (1980), Molnar (1980), Lehman (1981), Barsbold (1983), Dodson (1983), Thulborn (1984), Russell (1984), Breithaupt (1985), Clemens (1986), Gauthier (1986), Carroll (1988), Mader and Bradley (1989), Kurzanov (1989), Molnar et al. (1990), Molnar (1991), Currie (1992), Carpenter (1992), Buffetaut et al. (1996), Carpenter (1997), Padian (1997), Hernández-Rivera (1997), Ryan (1997), Ryan (1997), Eberth (1997), Sereno (1998), Carr (1999), Currie (2000), Currie et al. (2003), Rauhut (2003), Erickson et al. (2004), Carr et al. (2005), Urban and Lamanna (2006), Li et al. (2009), Carr et al. (2011), Brown and Druckenmiller (2011), Paulina Carabajal and Currie (2012), Dalman (2013), Lü et al. (2014) and Carr et al. (2017).