Reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls are common structural elements, although their cyclic behavior under different combinations of axial and lateral loading requires further study. The boundaries of flexural-dominated walls experience the greatest stress and strain; thus, rebar layouts are vital in this area and have significant effects on the cyclic behavior of a wall. In the current study, three full-scale walls were designed and constructed using the ACI318-19 special structural wall criteria with boundary elements placed at each end of the wall. Cyclic testing was performed on RC shear walls for different lateral and axial load combinations. These large-scale tests showed how axial loads affect the seismic performance of special RC shear walls. The seismic parameters of the force–displacement hysteresis curves, concrete strain, rebar strain, dissipated energy and stiffness are presented and discussed. The experimental findings demonstrate the effect of axial loading on the wall deformation capacity, strength capacity and mode of failure. Experimental backbone curves for numerical models of walls as recommended by ASCE41-17 revealed that the ASCE model overestimates the effective stiffness of walls with axial loads of less than 10% fcAg, A four-line model is proposed to estimate the force–deformation relationship. It is demonstrated that the effective stiffness coefficient should be a function of the axial load ratio.