Corrosion is considered as one of the main factors in the structural performance deterioration of steel members. In this study, experimental and numerical methods were used to assess the reduction in compressive strength of short tubular steel columns with artificially fabricated local corrosion damage. The corrosion damage was varied with different depths, heights, circumferences, and locations along the column. A parametric numerical study was performed to establish a correlation between the residual compressive strength and the severity of corrosion damage. The results showed that as the corrosion depth, height and circumference increased, the compressive strength decreased linearly. As for the corrosion height, the residual compressive strength became constant after decreasing linearly when the corrosion height was greater than the half-wavelength of buckling of the short columns. An equation is presented to evaluate the residual compressive strength of short columns with local corrosion wherein the volume of the corrosion damage was used as a reduction factor in calculating the compressive strength. The percentage error using the presented equation was found to be within 11.4%.