The seismic vulnerability of single-story adobe dwellings located in Cusco, Peru, is studied based on a mechanics-based procedure, which considers the analysis of in-plane and out-of-plane failure mechanisms of walls. The capacity of each dwelling is expressed as a function of its displacement capacity and period of vibration and is evaluated for different limit states to damage. The seismic demand has been obtained from several displacement response spectral shapes. From the comparison of the capacity with the demand, probabilities of limit state exceedance have been obtained for different PGA values. The results indicate that fragility curves in terms of PGA are strongly influenced by the response spectrum shape; however, this is not the case for the derivation of fragility curves in terms of limit state spectral displacement. Finally, fragility curves for dwellings located in Pisco, Peru, were computed and the probabilities of limit state exceedance were compared with the data obtained from the 2007 Peruvian earthquake. © 2012, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.