Rockfalls in hilly regions significantly damaging life and property. The intensity of energy transferred during rockfall impact ranges from Joules to Kilojoules. To mitigate rockfall hazards, a rockfall protection gallery is constructed to protect life and also to dissipate the rockfall-induced impact energy. The function of a rockfall protection structure is to bear the direct impact of the mass, deforming elastically and/or plastically and transmitting the stresses to the connection components, i.e., the support structure and the foundations. In most situations, the impact force-structure interaction was not properly carried out, which limits the structure’s performance. In this study, rockfall-induced impact on rockfall protection structure was evaluated numerically using the finite element software LS-DYNA, and the results were analysed for impact force-structure interaction. Parameters such as height of fall and rock mass were varied to assess the absorbing and dissipation characteristics of concrete material against impact loading. The influence of the cushioning layer against impact forces was evaluated based on the numerical investigations and the energy transfer characteristics with and without a cushioning system were compared. Based on the numerical results, an efficient and economical energy-absorbing cushioning system was suggested to improve the durability and serviceability of the rockfall protection structures. For the safe impact, a slab was observed to absorb about 31% of the energy on impact. The maximum impact force was found to be 106 kN. A cushion layer with thickness more than 500 mm was concluded safe for the impact.