The seismic permanent displacement of cantilever retaining walls are affected by the potential slip failure characteristics of the backfill above the heel plate. In this paper

solutions of the permanent displacement are derived based on the quasi-static approach

upper bound limit analysis and Newmark sliding block model. The proposed method involves three possible wall displacement modes comprising overall rotation with log-spiral curve

horizontal translation along the wall base and rotation around the wall toe. A worked example indicates that the seismic permanent displacement obtained by the first two modes are similar and much higher than the third. Thus

the first two modes are more crucial for engineering project design. Compared with existing empirical formulas

relative error of the proposed method is below 30%. Besides

the proposed result is 7% less than that by Ambraseys-Menu’s method with probability confidence level of 0.7. For the overall rotation mode of the wall-slope system under a specified horizontal seismic action

sensitivity analysis of ten main parameters’ influence on the horizontal yield acceleration is conducted and the order of these sensitivities is recommended.