Although now confined to Asia and tropical Central and South America, evidence indicates in the past the family had a wider distribution.

The now extinct genus Parasaurauia is thought to have belonged to the Actinidiaceae and lived in North America during the early Campanian.

The USDA Plants Database, a resource considered authoritative, still places the Actinidaceae within the Theales, an order which has been shown not to be monophyletic.

Multiple studies using genetic evidence now firmly place the Actinidiaceae in the Ericoid clade, a monophyletic group consisting of the Ericaceae, the Cyrillaceae, the Clethraceae, the Sarraceniaceae, and the Roridulaceae.

Furthermore, biological characteristics of the cells, and molecular evidence have confirmed the three genera currently circumscribed in the Actinidiaceae, Clematoclethra, Saurauia, and Actinidia, do indeed form a monophyletic group.