Like other fairywrens, the splendid fairywren is unrelated to the true wren. It was first classified as a member of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae by Richard Bowdler Sharpe, though it was later placed in the warbler family Sylviidae by the same author, before being placed in the newly recognised family Maluridae in 1975. More recently, DNA analysis has shown the family Maluridae to be related to the family Meliphagidae (the honeyeaters), and the family Pardalotidae within a large superfamily, Meliphagoidea.