Abstract: The infilled reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures are widely distributed in China, and the performance index limits of such structures proposed in Chinese seismic code do not fully consider the influence of infills on the damage state of the structure. Following the principle of defining the damage state in Chinese seismic code, a method for determining the performance index limits of infilled RC frame structures based on the damage rate of components was proposed to provide a new research idea for the establishment of the correspondence between damage states of such structures and engineering demand parameters. The numerical model of a typical structure was established to calculate the performance index limits by the method proposed. The performance index limits obtained were compared with the performance index limits without considering infills. Compared with the index limits without considering the infills, the upper limits of the inter-story drift ratio obtained are smaller for the four damage states such as intact, slight damage, moderate damage and, severe damage. The upper limit of inter-story drift ratio for the intact condition is 1/832, which is much smaller than the elastic inter-story drift ratio limit (1/550) in Chinese code. The application of the inter-story drift ratio limits in Chinese seismic code to evaluate the damage state of infilled RC frame structures will underestimate the damage degree.