The Rutaceae was described by the French botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in his 1789 book Genera Plantarum. "Rutaceae" remains the name in use (nomen conservandum) for the family as defined in the International Plant Names Index. The type genus is Ruta.

In 1896, Engler published a division of the family Rutaceae into seven subfamilies. One, Rhabdodendroideae, is no longer considered to belong to