A taxonomic study was carried out on strain GCS-AE-31^T, which was isolated from a phenol-degrading consortium, enriched from coking wastewater activated sludge of the Beijing Shougang Company Limited during the screening of phenol-degrading bacteria. Cells of strain GCS-AE-31^T were Gram-stain-negative, short rods, motile by gliding, oxidase- and catalase-positive. Growth was observed at salinities of 0–3 % and at temperatures of 10–37 °C. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain GCS-AE-31^T was most closely related to Pedobacter saltans LMG 10337^T (96.17 %), but it showed low similarity to all other species of the genus Pedobacter (89.28–92.45 %). It also showed low 16S rRNA gene similarity to all other species of the family Sphingobacteriaceae (87.25–92.45 %) examined. The dominant fatty acids were iso-C_{15 : 0}, summed feature 3 (C_{16 : 1}ω7c/C_{16 : 1}ω6c), anteiso-C_{15 : 0} and iso-C_{17 : 0} 3-OH. The menaquinones were MK-7 (95.5 %) and MK-6 (4.5 %). The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, three aminolipids and three unknown phospholipids. Sphingolipid was present. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA was 36.2 mol%. According to its phylogenetic position and phenotypic traits, the novel strain could not be assigned to the genus Pedobacter ; it should be classified as representing a novel species of a novel genus in the family Sphingobacteriaceae , for which the name Pseudopedobacter beijingensis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed (type strain GCS-AE-31^T = MCCC 1A01299^T = CGMCC 1.12329^T = LMG 27180^T). The misclassified species Pedobacter saltans is transferred to the novel genus as Pseudopedobacter saltans comb. nov. (type strain LMG 10337^T = MCCC 1A06472^T = DSM 12145^T = CCUG 39354^T = CIP 105500^T = JCM 21818^T = NBRC 100064^T).