Eschrichtiidae was named by Ellerman and Morrisson-Scott (1951) [Fraser and Purves (1960) were the first(?) to use a subfamily Eschrichtiinae.]. It is extant. It was considered monophyletic by Ekdale et al. (2011).

It was assigned to Chaeomysticeti by Rice (1998); to Eschrichtioidea by Sanders and Barnes (2002) and Gingerich (2005); to Mysticeti by Bouetel and Muizon (2006); to Cetotherioidea by Steeman (2007); to Mysticeti by Ellerman and Morrisson-Scott (1951), Fraser and Purves (1960), Scheffer and Rice (1963), Barnes et al. (1985), Carroll (1988), Vidal (1991), Benton (1993), Fordyce and Barnes (1994), Fordyce et al. (1995), Fordyce and de Muizon (2001), Fordyce (2003), Mead and Brownell (2005), Bisconti and Varola (2006), Bisconti (2008), Whitmore and Kaltenbach (2008) and Uhen et al. (2008); to Thalassotherii by Bisconti et al. (2013); to Balaenopteroidea by Geisler and Sanders (2003), Bianucci and Landini (2007), Geisler et al. (2011), Ekdale et al. (2011) and Bisconti (2014); and to Balaenopteroidea by Berta (2017) and Fleming et al. (2022).