The aim of this paper is to investigate the height-wise distribution of ductility demand in code-compliant multi-story building frames subjected to strong ground motions with different characteristics. The effects of some structural parameters including number of stories, fundamental period, and level of inelastic behavior on the height-wise distribution of ductility demand are investigated. However, the main focus is on the effects of earthquake characteristics such as its hazard level and near-fault pulses on the ductility demand distribution. At first, a code-compliant lateral load distribution is adopted to develop simple relations for the distribution of stiffness and shear strength along the height of the shear building models of the multi-story building frames. Then nonlinear dynamic ananlyses of these models are performed. The obtained results indicate that the ductility demands in intermediate stories are often less than those are in lower or upper stories. The non-uniformity of the height-wise distribution of ductility demands increases as the level of inelastic behavior increases. It can also be seen that in the lower stories, ductility demands under near-fault records are significantly more than those are under far-field ones.