Abstract In recent years, the steel corrugated shear walls (SCSWs) are widely used in building structures to serve as lateral force resistant members. For some practical engineering applications that the width of the infilled SCSWs in frame structure is much greater than its height, it is common to add vertical stiffening systems to the SCSWs, thus forming the stiffened SCSWs (SSCSWs), and the stiffening system is composed of a pair of vertical stiffeners installed on both sides of the corrugated plate and the connecting high-strength bolts. In this paper, the shear resistant behavior of the SSCSWs is investigated via FE analyses considering both the geometrical and material nonlinearities, and over 300 models are analyzed through elastoplastic numerical process. The comparison of the shear resistant behavior of SSCSWs with different stiffening rigidities is performed, which indicates that the stiffening system can effectively restrain the out-of-plane displacements of the corrugated wall, and can improve both shear resistance and ductility of the SSCSWs. Then a transition rigidity ratio of the stiffening system is proposed to reflect the critical value of the stiffening rigidity that the out-of-plane displacements of the corrugated plate are fully restrained at the bolted locations. Correspondingly, curve fitted formula of the transition rigidity ratio is provided to enable a conservative prediction. Finally, shear buckling formulas are fitted to reveal the relationship between the reduction factor and the normalized aspect ratio, and they are validated to be able to conservatively predict the ultimate shear stress of SSCSWs. Accordingly, some design recommendations are presented, which could provide valuable references for practical design of SSCSWs.