the plume-toed swiftlet was described by the english ornithologist robert cecil beavan in 1867 and given current binomial name "collocalia affinis". the type locality is port blair in the andaman islands. the specific epithet "affinis" is latin for "related" or "applied". the plume-toed swiftlet was previously treated as a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet but was promoted to species status based on the results of a detailed analysis of the swiftlets in the genus "collocalia" published in 2017.