Dromaeosaurus was named by Matthew and Brown (1922). It was considered monophyletic by Currie (2000).

It was assigned to Dinodontidae by Huene (1927); to Megalosaurinae by Nopcsa (1928); to Coelurosauria by Kuhn (1939); to Compsognathidae by Stromer (1934), Tatarinov (1964); to Theropoda by Ostrom (1965); to Deinodontidae by Russell (1930), Russell (1935), Wolberg (1980); to Coeluridae by Romer (1956), Parsch (1963), Romer (1966), Steel (1970), Coulton (1976), Dodson (1983); to Microraptorinae by Ezcurra (2009); to Dromaeosauridae by Colbert and Russell (1969), Ostrom (1969), Kurzanov (1976), Sues (1977), Sues (1978), Molnar (1978), Molnar (1980), Santafé et al. (1982), Thulborn (1984), Russell (1984), Breithaupt (1985), Clemens (1986), Gauthier (1986), Currie (1987), Carroll (1988), Antunes and Sigogneau (1992), Currie (1995), Osmólska (1996), Eberth (1997), Currie (1997), Sereno (1997), Le Loeuff and Buffetaut (1998), Eberth et al. (2001), Peng et al. (2001), Sankey et al. (2002), Rauhut (2003), Currie and Varricchio (2004), Norell and Makovicky (2004), Kiernan and Schwimmer (2004), Smith (2007), Turner et al. (2007), Longrich (2008), Godefroit et al. (2008), Godefroit et al. (2009), Gianechini et al. (2011), Porfiri et al. (2011), Brown and Druckenmiller (2011), Pei et al. (2014), Hendrickx and Mateus (2014), Torices et al. (2015), van der Reest and Currie (2017), Gianechini et al. (2017); and to Dromaeosaurinae by Matthew and Brown (1922), Hay (1930), Paul (1988), Currie et al. (1990), Currie (1992), Sereno (1998), Zinke (1998), Barsbold and Osmólska (1999), Currie (2000), Barco and Ruiz-Omeñaca (2001), Senter et al. (2004), Burnham et al. (2004), Longrich and Currie (2009), Larson and Currie (2013), Sues and Averianov (2014), Williamson and Brusatte (2014), Jasinski et al. (2020).