To assess the post‐earthquake seismic safety of buildings, it is crucial to predict seismic response, and it is necessary to set the appropriate physical parameters of the response analysis model. Numerous methods have been proposed to identify physical parameters. However, most of them are limited to linear systems, and previous researches on nonlinear systems have difficulties in practical applications. In this paper, a nonlinear response analysis model is identified for a full‐scale ten‐story reinforced concrete building with the degrading tri‐linear stiffness model by the modal iterative error correction (MIEC) method, and the accuracy of this technique is discussed by comparing with the shaking table test.