diff --git a/docs/source/features.rst b/docs/source/features.rst
index 949e47107..badc1fb24 100644
--- a/docs/source/features.rst
+++ b/docs/source/features.rst
@@ -241,7 +241,9 @@ reads the same zip-file, but extracts the CSV files and stores them locally in t
 **For developers**: this "chaining" methods works by formatting the arguments passed to ``open_*``
 into ``target_protocol`` (a simple string) and ``target_options`` (a dict) and also optionally
 ``fo`` (target path, if a specific file is required). In order for an implementation to chain
-successfully like this, it must look for exactly those named arguments.
+successfully like this, it must look for exactly those named arguments. Implementations that
+require access to the target path of their nested targets should inherit from ``ChainedFileSystem``,
+which will trigger pass-through of the nested path automatically.
 
 Caching Files Locally
 ---------------------
diff --git a/fsspec/core.py b/fsspec/core.py
index d8e75572b..a7db808ae 100644
--- a/fsspec/core.py
+++ b/fsspec/core.py
@@ -330,7 +330,7 @@ def open_files(
 
 def _un_chain(path, kwargs):
     # Avoid a circular import
-    from fsspec.implementations.cached import CachingFileSystem
+    from fsspec.implementations.chained import ChainedFileSystem
 
     if "::" in path:
         x = re.compile(".*[^a-z]+.*")  # test for non protocol-like single word
@@ -358,7 +358,7 @@ def _un_chain(path, kwargs):
             **kws,
         )
         bit = cls._strip_protocol(bit)
-        if "target_protocol" not in kw and issubclass(cls, CachingFileSystem):
+        if "target_protocol" not in kw and issubclass(cls, ChainedFileSystem):
             bit = previous_bit
         out.append((bit, protocol, kw))
         previous_bit = bit
diff --git a/fsspec/implementations/cached.py b/fsspec/implementations/cached.py
index 74e6a59e4..8e4d0a0ba 100644
--- a/fsspec/implementations/cached.py
+++ b/fsspec/implementations/cached.py
@@ -9,13 +9,14 @@
 from shutil import rmtree
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Callable, ClassVar
 
-from fsspec import AbstractFileSystem, filesystem
+from fsspec import filesystem
 from fsspec.callbacks import DEFAULT_CALLBACK
 from fsspec.compression import compr
 from fsspec.core import BaseCache, MMapCache
 from fsspec.exceptions import BlocksizeMismatchError
 from fsspec.implementations.cache_mapper import create_cache_mapper
 from fsspec.implementations.cache_metadata import CacheMetadata
+from fsspec.implementations.chained import ChainedFileSystem
 from fsspec.implementations.local import LocalFileSystem
 from fsspec.spec import AbstractBufferedFile
 from fsspec.transaction import Transaction
@@ -39,7 +40,7 @@ def complete(self, commit=True):
         self.fs = None  # break cycle
 
 
-class CachingFileSystem(AbstractFileSystem):
+class CachingFileSystem(ChainedFileSystem):
     """Locally caching filesystem, layer over any other FS
 
     This class implements chunk-wise local storage of remote files, for quick
diff --git a/fsspec/implementations/chained.py b/fsspec/implementations/chained.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..bfce64334
--- /dev/null
+++ b/fsspec/implementations/chained.py
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+from typing import ClassVar
+
+from fsspec import AbstractFileSystem
+
+__all__ = ("ChainedFileSystem",)
+
+
+class ChainedFileSystem(AbstractFileSystem):
+    """Chained filesystem base class.
+
+    A chained filesystem is designed to be layered over another FS.
+    This is useful to implement things like caching.
+
+    This base class does very little on its own, but is used as a marker
+    that the class is designed for chaining.
+
+    Right now this is only used in `url_to_fs` to provide the path argument
+    (`fo`) to the chained filesystem from the underlying filesystem.
+
+    Additional functionality may be added in the future.
+    """
+
+    protocol: ClassVar[str] = "chained"
diff --git a/fsspec/tests/test_chained.py b/fsspec/tests/test_chained.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0c7579481
--- /dev/null
+++ b/fsspec/tests/test_chained.py
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+import pytest
+
+from fsspec import AbstractFileSystem, filesystem, register_implementation, url_to_fs
+from fsspec.implementations.cached import ChainedFileSystem
+
+
+class MyChainedFS(ChainedFileSystem):
+    protocol = "mychain"
+
+    def __init__(self, target_protocol="", target_options=None, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(**kwargs)
+        self.fs = filesystem(target_protocol, **target_options)
+
+
+class MyNonChainedFS(AbstractFileSystem):
+    protocol = "mynonchain"
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(scope="module")
+def register_fs():
+    register_implementation(MyChainedFS.protocol, MyChainedFS)
+    register_implementation(MyNonChainedFS.protocol, MyNonChainedFS)
+    yield
+
+
+def test_token_passthrough_to_chained(register_fs):
+    # First, run a sanity check
+    fs, rest = url_to_fs("mynonchain://path/to/file")
+    assert isinstance(fs, MyNonChainedFS)
+    assert fs.protocol == "mynonchain"
+    assert rest == "path/to/file"
+
+    # Now test that the chained FS works
+    fs, rest = url_to_fs("mychain::mynonchain://path/to/file")
+    assert isinstance(fs, MyChainedFS)
+    assert fs.protocol == "mychain"
+    assert rest == "path/to/file"
+    assert isinstance(fs.fs, MyNonChainedFS)
+    assert fs.fs.protocol == "mynonchain"