Abstract This paper completes a study of Amabili and Garziera [2000, Vibrations of circular cylindrical shells with nonuniform constraints, elastic bed and added mass; Part I: empty and fluid-filled shells. J. Fluids Struct. 14, 669–690; 2002a, Vibrations of circular cylindrical shells with nonuniform constraints, elastic bed and added mass; Part II: shells containing or immersed in axial flow. J. Fluids Struct. 16, 31–51; 2002b, Vibrations of circular cylindrical shells with nonuniform constraints, elastic bed and added mass; Part III: steady viscous effects on shells conveying fluid. J. Fluids Struct. 16, 795–809] by adding the effect of rotary inertia of added masses to the DIVA code, based on the Rayleigh–Ritz method and developed to study free vibrations of circular cylindrical shells with nonuniform boundary conditions, added masses, partial elastic bed, initial pre-stress, conveying flow or immersed in axial flow. The effect of rotary inertia has also been evaluated by commercial FEM software and experiments in order to validate the DIVA code. Calculations and experiments show that the effect of rotary inertia of added masses is generally negligible, except for additional local modes; this is in contrast with what has been found for thin plates, due to the geometric stiffness of the circular cylindrical shell.