Earthquake resistance design has been developed many countries like Japan, USA, Mexico, New Zealand etc., which countries have experienced many earthquakes. Nowadays, earthquake resistance design has come into worldwide use. In Korea, the seismic design regulations have been established since 1988 in order to minimize the economic losses. Recently performance based design method has been adopted as a new Earthquake resistance design method. These regulations, however, are targeted for newly constructed buildings, In Korea, there are no regulations for existing buildings that built before 1988. On the other hand, in Japan and USA, the seismic performance evaluation is coded. In Japan, the evaluation index which can measure seismic performance has been made. So, we need to prepare the regulations that evaluate the seismic performance, furthermore proper retrofitting design guideline needs to be proposed when remodeling old buildings. In this research, various seismic performance evaluation methods which are being used in Japan and USA are reviewed in order to establish seismic performance evaluation index for those existing old structures in Korea.