Dyrosauridae was named by Stefano (1903) [Stefano (1903; p. 65): “Alla nuova famiglia io darei il nome di Dyrosauridae, dall’unico rappresentante, il Dyrosaurus Pomel, che si conosce finora.”]. It was considered monophyletic by Jouve (2009).

It was reranked as the subfamily Dyrosaurinae by Nopcsa (1928); it was synonymized subjectively with Congosauridae by Kuhn (1966); it was reranked as the family Dyrosauridae by Souza et al. (2019); it was reranked as the unranked clade Dyrosauridae by Jouve and Jalil (2020), Jouve et al. (2021).

It was assigned to Teleosauridae by Nopcsa (1928); to Mesosuchia by Kuhn (1946), Huene (1954), Buffetaut (1978), Carroll (1988), Gasparini and Spalletti (1990); to Mesoeucrocodylia by Hastings et al. (2011); to Tethysuchia by Buffetaut (1982), Andrade et al. (2011); to Neosuchia by Jouve et al. (2005), Jouve et al. (2006), Gasparini et al. (2006), Jouve (2009), Martin et al. (2010), Bronzati et al. (2012), Montefeltro et al. (2013); to Tethysuchia by Young et al. (2016); to Tethysuchoidea by Souza et al. (2019); to Tethysuchia by Jouve and Jalil (2020); and to Dyrosauroidea by Jouve et al. (2021).