Lacustrine deposits of Juro-Cretaceous age in northeastern China have yielded some of the best-preserved fossils of early crown salamanders. One of those taxa, Chunerpeton tianyiense, has been considered as a crown or stem member of the family Cryptobranchidae, significant for implying a long evolutionary history for cryptobranchids and for calibrating the molecular clock of Caudata evolution. Building on the most recent large-scale phylogenetic analysis of relationships among fossil and recent salamanders and utilizing new specimens of Chunerpeton, we update the osteological description and diagnosis for Chunerpeton and reconsider its phylogenetic relationships. On the basis of recently collected Chunerpeton skeletons from the type locality at Daohugou, Inner Mongolia, China and available literature, we update the taxon-character matrix and run phylogenetic analyses with constraints on the relationships among families using a molecular backbone. We redescribe the osteology of Chunerpeton, revise and identify some new characters including large anterodorsal fenestra bordered by paired premaxillae, nasals, and frontals; nasals separate and wider than frontal; contact between nasal and prefrontal present; lacrimal present; and contact between pterygoid and parasphenoid absent. Osteological comparisons between Chunerpeton and living cryptobranchids reveal a suite of distinct differences in snout shape and in configurations, positions, and contacts of certain skull bones. Our phylogenetic analyses consistently place Chunerpeton as a stem Caudata outside of Cryptobranchidae and crown salamanders. Exclusion of Chunerpeton from Cryptobranchidae will require reconsideration of the origin time for Cryptobranchidae and recalibration of the molecular clock for the whole caudatan tree.