 The yellow-browed seedeater was formerly placed in the genus "Serinus" but phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences found that the genus was polyphyletic.The genus was therefore split and a number of species including the yellow-browed seedeater were moved to the resurrected genus "Crithagra".Since 2012 the IUCN has treated this taxon as a subspecies of "Crithagra striolata".