The Piesmatidae are distributed mostly in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with some occurring in Africa, Australia and South America.

This resembles the similar pattern of the Tingidae of the infraorder Cimicomorpha, and was initially taken to signify a close relationship.

Cretopiesma was found in mid-Cretaceous amber from Myanmar and lived about 100 mya (million years ago) and was initially considered to be a primitive piesmatid but this has since been rejected.

After the ash-grey leaf bugs were recognized as Pentatomomorpha, they were most often placed in the Lygaeoidea based on cladistic analysis, with their relatives variously presumed to be the Berytidae, Colobathristidae and Malcidae, or the peculiar, beetle-like Psamminae, a subfamily of the Lygaeidae.

[1] Alternatively, the ash-grey leaf bugs were considered Pentatomomorpha incertae sedis or placed in a monotypic superfamily Piesmatoidea with the discovery of Cretopiesma.