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This paper presents a comparative evaluation among some international, European and American, seismic design standards. The study considers the criteria for the analysis of conventional (residential and commercial) buildings. The study is focused on some critical topics: definition of the recurrence periods for establishing the seismic input; definition of the seismic zonation and shape of the design response spectra; consideration of local soil conditions; definition of the seismic force-resisting systems and respective response modification coefficients; definition of the allowable procedures for the seismic analysis. A model for a standard reinforced concrete building ("Model Building") has been developed to permit the comparison among codes. This building has been modelled with two different computer programs, SAP2000 and SOFiSTiK and subjected to seismic input according to the several seismic codes. The obtained results compared are leading to some important conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]