Hemipristis was named by Agassiz (1835) [Sepkoski's age data: T Eo-m R Sepkoski's reference number: 884]. It is extant.

It was assigned to Squalidae by Gibbes (1847); to Carcharhininae by Hay (1902); to Galeorhinidae by Jordan and Gilbert (1919) and Jordan and Hanibal (1923); to Carchariidae by Woodward (1889), Eastman (1908), Chapman and Cudmore (1924) and Leriche (1942); to Eulamiidae by Rapp (1946); to Galeidae by Jordan (1963); to Isuridae by Deraniyagala (1969); to Carcharhinidae by Casier (1958), Case (1981), Thurmond and Jones (1981) and Kumar and Loyal (1987); to Galeorhinini by Yabe and Hirayama (1998); to Carcharhiniformes by Sepkoski (2002); and to Hemigaleidae by Purdy et al. (2001), Vicens and Rodríguez-Perea (2003), Compagno (2005), Chandler et al. (2006), Cahuzac et al. (2007), Adnet et al. (2007), Cicimurri and Knight (2009), Carrillo-Briceño et al. (2016), Hastings and Dooley (2017), Kent (2018), Ebersole et al. (2019), Cantalice et al. (2019), Landini et al. (2019), Adnet et al. (2020) and Cicimurri et al. (2022).