This group was named in 2016 in the context of the description, based on Spanish findings of an early member of the Rhabdodontidae.

Therefore, Paul-Emile Dieudonné, Thierry Tortosa, Fidel Torcida Fernández-Baldor, José Ignacio Canudo and Ignacio Díaz-Martínez defined Rhabdodontomorpha as a nodal clade: the group consisting of the last common ancestor of Rhabdodon priscus Matheron, 1869 and Muttaburrasaurus langdoni Bartholomai and Molnar, 1981; and all its descendants.

[3] In 2021, Daniel Madzia redefined Rhabdodontomorpha in the PhyloCode as "the largest clade containing Rhabdodon priscus, but not Iguanodon bernissartensis and Hypsilophodon foxii".

[4] The clade is characterized by the following synapomorphies:[5] The group consists of small to large plant eaters from Europe and Gondwana.

[5] The slightly less inclusive Rhabdodontoidea was named by Karen Poole in 2022 and defined by Fonseca and colleagues in 2024 in the PhyloCode as "the largest clade containing Rhabdodon priscus, but not Hypsilophodon foxii, Iguanodon bernissartensis, and Tenontosaurus tilletti".