Abstract | Guidelines for developing analytical seismic vulnerability functions are proposed for use within the framework of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM). Emphasis is on high-rise buildings and cases where the analyst has the skills and time to perform nonlinear dynamic analysis. The basis for this effort is formed by the key components of the state-of-art PEER/ATC-58 methodology for loss assessment. Simplified modeling options are proposed to reduce model complexity and ease application for building ensembles. Nonlinear dynamic analysis is employed for the estimation of local story drift and absolute acceleration response to evaluate both structural and non-structural losses. Important sources of uncertainty are identified and propagated using simplified methods based on moment-matching to reduce the computational load. The resulting guidelines allow the generation of vulnerability functions for a class of high-rise buildings with a reasonable amount of effort by an informed engineer.