The classification of Irarutu and Koiwai, two Austronesian languages spoken in the vicinity of New Guinea’s Bomberai peninsula, is unresolved. Competing proposals variously link the languages to the South-Halmahera-West New Guinea group and the Central Malayo-Polynesian group. This article makes a novel proposal, positing that Irarutu and Koiwai have a narrow subgrouping relationship, and in turn places them together in a higher subgroup with the Seram Laut languages.