Found only in Argentina, the categorization of this species was based on analysis of four specimens which were caught among the rocks in the clefts of which it lived.

In 2002, Braun and Mares from the University of Oklahoma examined this specimen and confirmed it to be a separate species.

The species was first described in 1920 by the British zoologist Oldfield Thomas, working at the Natural History Museum, London.

It is named in honour of Emilio Budin, an Argentine specimen collector who worked with Oldfield Thomas.

[3] Ellerman, in 1940, considered Budin's chinchilla rat to be a subspecies of the ashy chinchilla rat (Abrocoma cinerea) but Braun and Mares, in 2002 recognised it as being distinct.