•Fractional dual-phase-lag heat diffusion was considered from kinetic relaxation time.•Temperature distribution and the PA signal were obtained for periodic excitation.•Changes in fractional order derivative change the temperature profile.•Anomalous DPL heat diffusion shifts and attenuates the peak of the hyperbolic result. We present the temperature distribution predictions for photothermal systems by considering an extension of dual-phase lag. It is an extension of the GCE-II and GCE-III models with a fractional dual-phase lag from kinetic relaxation time. Solving the one-dimensional problem considering a planar and periodic excitation, we obtained the temperature distribution and the Photoacoustic (PA) signal for the transmission setup. We also analyze the effects of fractional order derivatives and kinetic relaxation time. It is shown that the derived models have promising results that could be used to explain the experimentally observed behavior of PA signals measured on thin films with an inhomogeneous internal structure.