The yellow-breasted greenfinch was described by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors in 1831 under the binomial name Carduelis spinides.

[2][3] Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the greenfinches are not closely related to the species in the genus Carduelis.

They have therefore been moved to the resurrected genus Chloris which had been introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1800.

[4][5][6] The word Chloris is from the Ancient Greek word khlōris for the European greenfinch; the specific epithet is from spinus in Fringilla spinus Linnaeus, 1758, the Eurasian siskin, and the Ancient Greek suffix -oidēs meaning "resembling".

It ranges across Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam.