This species used to be kept in synonymy with
Vespula vulgaris (Linnaeus, 1758). However,
V. vulgaris is restricted to the
Palaearctic region (accidentally introduced to Australia and New Zealand). The confusion was recently rectified by Carpenter & Glare (2010). They showed that
Vespula alascensis differs from
V. vulgaris by the male genitalia, and some not so reliable colour characters (
V. vulgaris often has yellow spots on the propodeum,
V. alascensis [
almost] never does). Genetically,
V. alascensis is more similar to
V. flavopilosa than to
V. vulgaris.