Taxonomically, the family is currently treated as the sole member of the order Mugiliformes, but as Nelson says, "there has been much disagreement concerning the relationships" of this family. The presence of fin spines clearly indicates membership in the superorder Acanthopterygii, and in the 1960s, they were classed as primitive perciforms, while others have grouped them in Atheriniformes. They are classified as an order, Mugiliformes, within the subseries Ovalentaria of the clade Percomorpha in the 5th Edition of "Fishes of the World".