Reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings are popularly used in the world and casually applied along with various geometric irregularities, such as vertical irregularity setback, to satisfy architectural aspects. In high seismicity regions, the existence of this setback produced larger structural responses and mostly happened at the significant change of story geometry, mass, or stiffness along the height. The seismic performance of this building can be improved by installing buckling-restrained braces (BRBs), an additional structural element introduced by absorbing more energy after yielding stage up to certain ductility. However, there are still numerous on-going research to determine the most optimum location, number, and strength of BRBs to install. In this study, the seismic response of eight-story RC frame building with 5 × 3 bays having setback at level 3 to 4, located in Indonesian high seismicity region, was investigated. The non-linear dynamic analyses were performed to inspect the inter-story drift ratios (ISDR). Eleven strong ground motions were matched to the region’s response spectrum and applied to the building. The result showed that the ISDR at the upper stories responded more than the allowable value, thus the two BRBs at each level are installed on level 4 to 6. The BRBs are idealized as bilinear passive damper and its properties such as yield strength and initial stiffness are parametrically studied to achieve the closest but having less ISDR than the limit. This study discussed and presented the most suitable BRBs properties based on the ISDR parameter for RC frame specimen with vertical irregularity setback.